Attribute-based Searchable Encryption Research Articles

Enhancing Security and Efficiency: A Fine-Grained Searchable Scheme for Encryption of Big Data in Cloud-Based Smart Grids

The smart grid, as a crucial part of modern energy systems, handles extensive and diverse data, including inputs from various sensors, metering devices, and user interactions. Outsourcing data storage to remote cloud servers presents an economical solution for enhancing data management within the smart grid ecosystem. However, ensuring data privacy before transmitting it to the cloud is a critical consideration. Therefore, it is common practice to encrypt the data before uploading them to the cloud. While encryption provides data confidentiality, it may also introduce potential issues such as limiting data owners’ ability to query their data. The searchable attribute-based encryption (SABE) not only enables fine-grained access control in a dynamic large-scale environment but also allows for data searches on the ciphertext domain, making it an effective tool for cloud data sharing. Although SABE has become a research hotspot, existing schemes often have limitations in terms of computing efficiency on the client side, weak security of the ciphertext and the trapdoor. To address these issues, we propose an efficient server-aided ciphertext-policy searchable attribute-based encryption scheme (SA-CP-SABE). In SA-CP-SABE, the user’s data access authority is consistent with the search authority. During the search process, calculations are performed not only to determine whether the ciphertext matches the keyword in the trapdoor, but also to assist subsequent user ciphertext decryption by reducing computational complexity. Our scheme has been proven under the random oracle model to achieve the indistinguishability of the ciphertext and the trapdoor and to resist keyword-guessing attacks. Finally, the performance analysis and simulation of the proposed scheme are provided, and the results show that it performs with high efficiency.

Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption: A Survey

With the advent of the big data era, the size and complexity of data continue to increase, which makes the requirement for data privacy and security increasingly urgent. However, traditional encryption methods cannot meet the demand for efficient searching in large-scale datasets. To solve this problem and enable users to search within encryped data and without decrypting the entire dataset, trapdoor functions and other cryptograhic techniques are introduced in searchable encryption. However, searchable encryption still cannot meet the needs in the real world. Therefore, researchers have introduced the concept of attribute-based encryption into searchable encryption, resulting in attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE). This approach aims to achieve efficient search by attributes in encrypted datasets. ABSE has a wide range of applications in the fields of privacy protection, data sharing, and cloud computing. In this paper, we describe the trends in development, focusing on enhancing security, improving computational efficiency, and increasing flexibility. We also present the related schemes. In addition, several common application areas are introduced and the relevant schemes proposed by researchers are summarized. Moreover, the challenges and future directions of ABSE are discussed in this paper.

Implementation of A Blockchain-based Searchable Encryption for Securing Contact Tracing Data

<p>We developed a blockchain-based multi-keyword searchable encryption scheme for securing COVID-19 contact tracing data. In this scheme, we used AES-GCM to encrypt the contact tracing data, guaranteeing that only authorized users can perform decryption. Our scheme employed a Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-based searchable encryption to encrypt the search index, ensuring only users with appropriate attributes can perform search operations. The scheme supports dynamic updates of the search index. The blockchain-based storage with smart contract ensures immutability and non-repudiation of storage and retrieval. Overall, the evaluation of the scheme shows that it works efficiently without compromising the security goals. This is one of the first works to implement a solution for secure storage and search of contact tracing data with blockchain-based searchable encryption. Compared to the existing searchable contact tracing schemes, it provides more features and maintains efficiency even if a large search index is used.</p> <p> </p>

Attribute-based searchable encryption with decentralized key management for healthcare data sharing

In this paper, we address the secure sharing of sensitive healthcare data in blockchain-based healthcare. As a form of sensitive information, healthcare data is often encrypted before being uploaded to cloud servers. Extensive research has been conducted on Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption (ABSE) to achieve fine-grained searchability of encrypted sensitive healthcare data. However, the existing ABSE schemes rely on a single authoritative center for managing the master key, resulting in a single point of failure. Additionally, there has been limited research focusing on the privacy concerns of user identity during the key generation process. To tackle these challenges, we propose a novel decentralized ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (DCP-ABSE) scheme. In this scheme, the master key is jointly managed by all attribute nodes on the blockchain. This ensures the smooth operation of the system even if some nodes are compromised. In addition, the user’s private key fragments are generated through interactions with all attribute nodes, in this process, the user’s identity information is not disclosed to attribute nodes. In addition, we prove that the proposed scheme is secure against chosen keyword attacks and chosen plaintext attacks under the Decisional Bilinear Diffie–Hellman assumption. The performance evaluation shows that the proposed scheme has high efficiency.

Offline/online attribute-based searchable encryption scheme from ideal lattices for IoT

Offline/online attribute-based searchable encryption scheme from ideal lattices for IoT

A Blockchain-Based Anonymous Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption Scheme for Data Sharing

A Blockchain-Based Anonymous Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption Scheme for Data Sharing

Certificateless searchable attribute-based encryption approach for cloud data based on blockchain

Certificateless searchable attribute-based encryption approach for cloud data based on blockchain

Online/offline attribute-based searchable encryption revised: Flexibility, security and efficiency

Attribute-based encryption with keyword search (ABKS) is a versatile public-key encryption system that supports access control and ciphertext retrieval. However, it often involves complex computations for ciphertext generation. To overcome this challenge, researchers have proposed several online/offline ABKS (OOABKS) schemes. These schemes optimize online ciphertext generation by pre-generating intermediate ciphertexts in an offline manner.However, we find some limitations of existing OOABKS schemes: (1) Some schemes lack flexibility because the intermediate ciphertext is embedded with an access structure and therefore it cannot be used to generate a final ciphertext encrypted under another access structure. (2) Other schemes fail to achieve the basic security requirement.In this work, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of existing OOABKS schemes. Next, we propose a revised OOABKS scheme that offers provable security based on the well-known Bethencourt et al.’s attribute-based encryption scheme. Our scheme retains the advantages of online/offline ciphertext generation in previous OOAKBS schemes while addressing their limitations. Experiment results show that our revised scheme achieves comparable efficiency to previous OOABKS schemes without sacrificing flexibility or security.

An efficient multi-data owner cooperative resource sharing scheme against key regeneration in edge computing

In cloud storage, attribute-based keyword searchable encryption realizes multi-user fine-grained authorization access control and outsourcing data sharing. However, (1) resisting key regeneration is an urgent problem to be solved in practical applications of attribute-based keyword search; (2) the general attribute-based keyword search scheme ignores the application scenario where multiple data owners jointly manage files. In addition, the interaction of data between intelligent terminals and cloud servers has become more frequent, leading to issues such as central load, transmission efficiency, and data privacy protection in cloud computing. To address the above issues, we propose an attribute-based searchable encryption scheme with the multi-data owner based on edge computing. In this scheme, the Pedersen (k,n) secret sharing protocol and the Reciprocal protocol are used to realize the common management and sharing of data by the multi-data owner to enhance data security. Secondly, the attribute set and identity information of each user are embedded into the private key to prevent key regeneration and resist user collusion attacks. Thirdly, edge computing is introduced, and part of the storage and decryption work is outsourced to edge nodes to reduce the computing load of users and data transmission bandwidth. Security proof and performance analysis show that the proposed scheme has strong security and practicability in multi-user sharing scenarios such as Online Education with multi-data owners.

Flexible and secure access control for EHR sharing based on blockchain

With the rapid development of the healthcare industry, many Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have emerged in different healthcare centers. However, lots of personal medical data are stored directly in plaintext at a single healthcare center, which makes it suffer from the single point of failure and brings many security and privacy issues such as privacy information leakage or tampering. The combination of blockchain and attributed-based cryptography can effectively solve the above problems. Therefore, in order to enable flexible fine-grained access control and efficient data retrieval while achieving privacy protection, we employ the ciphertext-policy attributed-based encryption (CP-ABE) and ciphertext-policy attribute-based searchable encryption (CP-ABSE) to propose a hidden policy attribute-based access control scheme. In addition, we combine consortium blockchain and smart contract to provide secure and reliable search and outsourcing decryption. Finally, through the security analysis and experimental results, we demonstrate that our scheme is secure and efficient.

Blockchain-Enabled Fine-Grained Searchable Encryption With Cloud–Edge Computing for Electronic Health Records Sharing

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) with cloud-edge computing in cyber-physical systems has revolutionized the way healthcare enterprises manage electronic health records (EHRs). With more healthcare enterprises outsourcing encrypted EHRs to the cloud, searchable encryption is utilized to retrieve encrypted data, especially attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE) can achieve fine-grained access control. However, ABSE usually requires a lot of computation, which imposes a serious burden on resource-limited devices. Moreover, ensuring fairness in data access is crucial in the healthcare domain, where both data users and owners may have conflicting interests. In order to overcome these problems, this paper proposes a searchable encryption scheme with fine-grained access control for cloud-based EHRs sharing assisted by blockchain. It transfers computing tasks to edge servers and enables users to control who has access to their EHRs. The adoption of blockchain and smart contracts guarantees data integrity and transaction fairness. Moreover, a consensus algorithm is designed for the higher efficiency of the proposed scheme. Finally, security analysis proves the proposed scheme resists adaptive chosen keyword attacks (CKA). Performance analysis further confirms it has more functionalities and is efficient for smart healthcare.

Blockchain-Backed Searchable Proxy Signcryption for Cloud Personal Health Records

Patient-centered data management and sharing of personal health records (PHRs) are difficult to be realized as data is controlled by doctors/hospitals. In addition, security and privacy, oppressive costs, search and tracing unreliability, and complicated access authorization caused by traditional encryption severely hinder the widespread adoption of PHRs. To overcome these challenges, we propose a blockchain-backed data sharing framework for PHRs, where the blockchain achieves reliable search and tracing. Furthermore, we design a hybrid <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">b</b> lock <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">c</b> hain-backed <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">s</b> earchable <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">p</b> roxy <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">s</b> ign <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">c</b> ryption scheme, named <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">BC-SPSC</b> . Specifically, an identity-based proxy signature (IBPS) is utilized to perform the authorization from patients to doctors to achieve authentic patient-centricity, therefore the blockchain can relate data with associated patients and doctors during data tracing. Moreover, BC-SPSC supports two search modes. The first mode adopts attribute-based encryption with keyword-based search (SABE), where all legitimate users can implement searches, but only users whose attributes satisfy the access structure can successfully decrypt. By contrast, the second mode utilizes attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE) to accomplish fine-grained authorization in both search and data access/decryption, that is, who can search is also constrained by data owners. Adequate performance comparisons and simulation experiments indicate significant advantages of the BC-SPSC scheme in storage and computation overheads.

An Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption Scheme for Cloud-Assisted IIoT

The searchable encryption is a particular case of structured encryption, which has been intensively researched in the secure cloud storage system. By constructing structured secure index such as encrypted multi-maps (EMM), encrypted inverted index (EII), etc., searchable encryption can achieve efficient keyword search over encrypted data set. However, existing searchable encryption constructions do not take search permissions into consideration, resulting in the lack of a mechanism of the data access control, which may not be suitable for IIoT applications, since an integrated industrial system contains all kinds of data with rigorous access permissions. In this paper, we construct an attribute-based searchable encryption construction for cloud-assisted IIoT application scenario. By designing the novel access policy based structured secure index and the attribute-based search token, our construction achieves fine-grained keyword search privilege control over encrypted IIoT data as well as the same search complexity as the traditional searchable encryption. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption (ABSE) construction. We provide the correctness and security proofs for our construction. Experimental evaluation results in a real-world data set show the correctness and the practical search efficiency of the proposed ABSE.

BMSQABSE: Design of a Bioinspired Model to Improve Security &amp; QoS Performance for Blockchain-Powered Attribute-based Searchable Encryption Applications

Attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE) is a sub-field of security models that allow intensive searching capabilities for cloud-based shared storage applications. ABSE Models require higher computational power, which limits their application to high-performance computing devices. Moreover, ABSE uses linear secret sharing scheme (LSSS), which requires larger storage when compared with traditional encryption models. To reduce computational complexity, and optimize storage cost, various researchers have proposed use of Machine Learning Models (MLMs), that assist in identification &amp; removal of storage &amp; computational redundancies. But most of these models use static reconfiguration, thus cannot be applied to large-scale deployments. To overcome this limitation, a novel combination of Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) model to improve Security &amp; QoS performance for Blockchain-powered Attribute-based Searchable Encryption deployments is proposed in this text. The proposed model augments ABSE parameters to reduce its complexity and improve QoS performance under different real-time user request scenarios. It intelligently selects cyclic source groups with prime order &amp; generator values to create bilinear maps that are used for ABSE operations. The PSO Model assists in generation of initial cyclic population, and verifies its security levels, QoS levels, and deployment costs under multiple real-time cloud scenarios. Based on this initial analysis, the GWO Model continuously tunes ABSE parameters in order to achieve better QoS &amp; security performance levels via stochastic operations. The proposed BMSQABSE model was tested under different cloud configurations, and its performance was evaluated for healthcare deployments. Based on this evaluation, it was observed that the proposed model achieved 8.3% lower delay, with 4.9% lower energy consumption, 14.5% lower storage requirements when compared with standard ABSE models. It was able to mitigate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Masquerading, Finney, and Sybil attacks, which assists in deploying the proposed model for QoS-aware highly secure deployments.

Attribute-based searchable encrypted scheme with edge computing for Industrial Internet of Things

Storing the data generated in the Industrial Internet of Things has become a method to solve data redundancy. Still, data security and privacy protection have become an issue that cannot ignore. Attribute-based searchable encryption can encrypt and retrieve data without exposing users’ privacy. In this paper, we introduce an attribute-based searchable scheme combining online/offline encryption and outsourcing decryption technology, which uses a reusable ciphertext pool to reduce the computation in the encryption stage, and uses an edge server to reduce the cost of resource-constrained users through outsourcing decryption. To improve the solution’s security, the specified server can authenticate the cloud server in the searchable location. Finally, our scheme is proven to satisfy CCA2-secure and is efficient in performance and safety analysis. In a word, the algorithm is suitable for the actual Industrial Internet of Things environment.

Access control scheme based on blockchain and attribute-based searchable encryption in cloud environment

With the rapid development of cloud computing technology, how to achieve secure access to cloud data has become a current research hotspot. Attribute-based encryption technology provides the feasibility to achieve the above goal. However, most of the existing solutions have high computational and trust costs. Furthermore, the fairness of access authorization and the security of data search can be difficult to guarantee. To address these issues, we propose a novel access control scheme based on blockchain and attribute-based searchable encryption in cloud environment. The proposed scheme achieves fine-grained access control with low computation consumption by implementing proxy encryption and decryption, while supporting policy hiding and attribute revocation. The encrypted file is stored in the IPFS and the metadata ciphertext is stored on the blockchain, which ensures data integrity and confidentiality. Simultaneously, the scheme enables the secure search of ciphertext keyword in an open and transparent blockchain environment. Additionally, an audit contract is designed to constrain user access behavior to dynamically manage access authorization. Security analysis proves that our scheme is resistant to chosen-plaintext attacks and keyword-guessing attacks. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that our scheme has high computational and storage efficiency, which is more advantageous than other schemes.

Verifiable Keyword Search Encryption Scheme That Supports Revocation of Attributes

In recent years, searchable encryption technology and attribute encryption technology have been widely used in cloud storage environments, and attribute-based searchable encryption schemes can both achieve the retrieval of encrypted data and effectively solve the access control problem. Considering that existing attribute-based searchable encryption schemes for cloud storage only support keyword search and do not support attribute revocation, most of the schemes that support attribute revocation only consider the computational overhead of users and ignore the large amount of computational resources consumed by attribute authorization centers when updating keys. In addition, keyword search may lead to partial errors in the returned search results, leading to the wastage of computational and broadband resources. To solve these issues, this paper proposes an attribute-based searchable encryption scheme that supports attribute revocation and is verifiable. To realize fine-grained ciphertext search of encrypted data, support scenarios of dynamic changes of user attributes, and ensure that third-party servers perform the search process reliably and honestly while minimizing computation and storage costs, first, this paper implements attribute revocation with the attribute authorization center by creating a user revocation list and an attribute key revocation list. At the same time, the system updates the attribute key at the time of user search request, which effectively reduces the computational overhead. Second, a third-party auditor is introduced to ensure the correctness of the search results. Finally, the security of this paper is verified by theoretical analysis, and the efficiency and practicality of this paper are verified by comparing it to other schemes through simulation experiments.

Attribute-based multi-user collaborative searchable encryption in COVID-19

With the outbreak of COVID-19, the government has been forced to collect a large amount of detailed information about patients in order to effectively curb the epidemic of the disease, including private data of patients. Searchable encryption is an essential technology for ciphertext retrieval in cloud computing environments, and many searchable encryption schemes are based on attributes to control user‘s search permissions to protect their data privacy. The existing attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE) scheme can only implement the situation where the search permission of one person meets the search policy and does not support users to obtain the search permission through collaboration. In this paper, we proposed a new attribute-based collaborative searchable encryption scheme in multi-user setting (ABCSE-MU), which takes the access tree as the access policy and introduces the translation nodes to implement collaborative search. The cooperation can only be reached on the translation node and the flexibility of search permission is achieved on the premise of data security. ABCSE-MU scheme solves the problem that a single user has insufficient search permissions but still needs to search, making the user’s access policy more flexible. We use random blinding to ensure the confidentiality and security of the secret key, further prove that our scheme is secure under the Decisional Bilinear Diffie–Hellman (DBDH) assumption. Security analysis further shows that the scheme can ensure the confidentiality of data under chosen-keyword attacks and resist collusion attacks.

Privacy-preserving data dissemination scheme based on Searchable Encryption, publish–subscribe model, and edge computing

Attribute-based Searchable Encryption is emerging as a promising cryptographic technique supporting data protection, flexible access control, and keyword search over encrypted data. The current scientific literature already investigated its adoption in cloud-based services and additionally explored the usage of edge computing to implement some of the cryptographic tasks in scenarios with limited computational capabilities (such as Internet of Things). In the majority of the available solutions, however, the remote cloud is still responsible for data storage, keyword search over encrypted data, and delivery tasks. Indeed, the heavy computational load generated in scenarios with multiple data producers and data consumers (never studied yet) and large communication latencies can inevitably compromise the overall system performance. To bridge this gap, this work proposes a decentralized service architecture offering privacy-preserving data dissemination, by jointly leveraging attribute-based Searchable Encryption techniques, publish–subscribe communication model, and edge computing capabilities. Here, customized Edge Servers are deployed at the network edge to (i) collect subscription requests encoded via Searchable Encryption Trapdoors, (ii) receive data publications, encrypted via Attribute-based Searchable Encryption scheme, (iii) implement keyword search over encrypted data, and (iv) deliver encrypted data only to authorized requesters. Experimental tests explored the impact of network configuration and traffic load on both communication latency and energy consumption. Obtained results demonstrated the unique ability of the proposed solution to achieve shorter data delivery delays as well as less energy consumption with respect to cloud-based alternatives.

Edge-aided searchable data sharing scheme for IoV in the 5G environment

The development of 5G technology provides huge potential for the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). In the IoV scenario, the secure exchange of traffic warning data is necessary to guarantee the safety of pedestrians, vehicles, and public transport facilities. However, there remain a series of challenging issues to achieve data secure sharing while ensuring efficiency. Current solutions such as the data outsourcing storage of traditional centralized cloud servers may cause information leakage due to their incomplete credibility. To address these problems mentioned above, this paper proposes an edge-aided searchable data sharing scheme based on blockchain for IoV in a 5G environment. First, the proposed scheme stores the search index of the keyword and the hash value of the data ciphertext on the blockchain to ensure its integrity and authenticity, and the smart contract automatically verifies the search trapdoor. And then, an edge caching mechanism is designed to quickly feedback on users’ retrieval needs based on a cloud-edge collaboration model. In addition, attribute-based searchable encryption is used to ensure that only the users who meet the access attributes and policy can decrypt the encrypted traffic warning data, which can achieve fine-grained access control and keyword search simultaneously. Finally, security analysis and performance evaluation demonstrate that our scheme is secure and more efficient compared with other schemes.