Secure and efficient encrypted keyword search for multi-user setting in cloud computing

Abstract

A key challenge to design searchable encryption in multi-user setting lies in the efficient management of encryption and search keys. Existing multi-user searchable encryption schemes either extend the single-user searchable encryption framework with broadcast encryption or require search user refers to the data owner and get the search token. However, this implies the necessity that the data owner distributes a single shared secret key among the group of users or requires the data owner stay online to authorize other users to search. In this paper, we address this practical problem, which is neglected in the literature. We also study secret-key-recovery attack where a malicious user can deduce a valid secret when given a search token. We show such attack violates secret key privacy, which is important in the whole system. Inspired by asymmetric group key agreement and multilinear map technology, we provide a secure and efficient encrypted keyword search scheme for multi-user setting, in which a data owner can share data with a group users without knowing which user in the group. In the proposed scheme, (a) each user has his own secret key, (b) each user generates trapdoors without getting any help from data owner or the third party, (c) our scheme features constant communication overhead, and (d) our scheme resist the secret-key-recovery attack. Our scheme preserves the traceability inherited from the asymmetric group key agreement system. We offer rigorous security proof of our scheme, and the performance analysis demonstrates the efficiency of our scheme.