The emergence of quantum computing threatens many classical cryptographic schemes, leading to the innovations in public-key cryptography for postquantum cryptography primitives and protocols that resist to quantum attacks. Lattice-based cryptography is considered to be one of the promising mathematical approaches to achieving security resistant to quantum attacks, which could be built on the learning with errors (LWE) problem and its variants. The fundamental building blocks of protocols for public-key encryption (PKE) and key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) submitted to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) based on LWE and its variants are called key consensus (KC) and asymmetric key consensus (AKC) by Jin et al. They are powerful tools for constructing PKE schemes. In this work, we further demonstrate the power of KC/AKC by proposing two special types of PKE schemes, namely, revocable attribute-based encryption (RABE). To be specific, on the basis of AKC and PKE/KEM protocols submitted to the NIST based on LWE and its variants, combined with full-rank difference, trapdoor on lattices, sampling algorithms, leftover hash lemma, and binary tree structure, we propose two directly revocable ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (DR-ABE) schemes from LWE, which support flexible threshold access policies on multivalued attributes, achieving user-level and attribute-level user revocation, respectively. Specifically, the construction of the ciphertext is derived from AKC, and the revocation list is defined and embedded into the ciphertext by the message sender to revoke a user in the user-level revocable scheme or revoke some attributes of a certain user in the attribute-level revocable scheme. We also discuss how to outsource decryption and reduce the workload for the end user. Our schemes proved to be secure in the standard model, assuming the hardness of the LWE problem. The two schemes imply the versatility of KC/AKC.
The emergence of quantum computing threatens many classical cryptographic schemes, leading to the innovations in public-key cryptography for postquantum cryptography primitives and protocols that resist to quantum attacks. Lattice-based cryptography is considered to be one of the promising mathematical approaches to achieving security resistant to quantum attacks, which could be built on the learning with errors (LWE) problem and its variants. The fundamental building blocks of protocols for public-key encryption (PKE) and key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) submitted to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) based on LWE and its variants are called key consensus (KC) and asymmetric key consensus (AKC) by Jin et al. They are powerful tools for constructing PKE schemes. In this work, we further demonstrate the power of KC/AKC by proposing two special types of PKE schemes, namely, revocable attribute-based encryption (RABE). To be specific, on the basis of AKC and PKE/KEM protocols submitted to the NIST based on LWE and its variants, combined with full-rank difference, trapdoor on lattices, sampling algorithms, leftover hash lemma, and binary tree structure, we propose two directly revocable ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (DR-ABE) schemes from LWE, which support flexible threshold access policies on multivalued attributes, achieving user-level and attribute-level user revocation, respectively. Specifically, the construction of the ciphertext is derived from AKC, and the revocation list is defined and embedded into the ciphertext by the message sender to revoke a user in the user-level revocable scheme or revoke some attributes of a certain user in the attribute-level revocable scheme. We also discuss how to outsource decryption and reduce the workload for the end user. Our schemes proved to be secure in the standard model, assuming the hardness of the LWE problem. The two schemes imply the versatility of KC/AKC.
Cloud computing offers abundant computing resources and scalable storage, but data leakage in the cloud storage environment is a common and critical concern due to inadequate protection measures. Revocable-attribute-based encryption (RABE) is introduced as an advanced form of identity-based encryption (IBE), which encrypts sensitive data while providing fine-grained access control and an effective user revocation mechanism. However, most existing RABE schemes are not resistant to quantum attacks and are limited in their application scenarios due to the revocation model. In this paper, we propose a RABE scheme constructed from lattices. Our scheme has several advantages, including a near-zero periodic workload for the key generation center (KGC), ensuring scalability as the number of users increases. Additionally, the encryptor is relieved from managing a revocation list. Moreover, our scheme guarantees the confidentiality and privacy of other ciphertexts even if the decryption key for a specific period is compromised. We validated the correctness of our scheme and demonstrated its security under the assumption of learning with errors (LWE), which is widely believed to be resistant to quantum attacks. Finally, we provide an application example of our RABE scheme in the electronic healthcare scenario.
The recent promising results on the hardness of lattice problems have inspired the construction of several Attribute-based Encryption (ABE) schemes from the quantum resistant perspective. However, these schemes are insufficient enough for supporting real-world applications due to inherent quadratic overhead problem in the use of Learning With Error (LWE). To solve this problem, this paper proposed a Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) scheme from a more lightweight ideal lattice classes- Ring-Learning with Errors (Ring-LWE), that further called as CP-ABER-LWEscheme. Compared to existing R-LWE based ABE scheme, the proposed CP-ABER-LWEis capable to handle a monotone access structure and enjoys collusion resistance properties. We exploited Linear Secret Scheme (LSSS) to express a monotone access structure. For resist to collusion attack, we applied the private key randomization technique to blind the user's private key. The proposed scheme CP-ABER-LWEis further proven to be secure under the Decision Ring-LWEd,q,χproblem in the selective set model.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing threatens to undermine classical cryptographic primitives, creating an urgent need for post-quantum secure alternatives. Lattice-based Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) has emerged as a promising direction, combining fine-grained access control with quantum resistance derived from lattice assumptions such as Learning With Errors (LWE) and Ring-LWE. This paper presents a systematic literature review of lattice-based ABE schemes published between 2022 and 2025, following the PRISMA methodology to ensure a rigorous and transparent study selection process. From an initial corpus of more than 7,800 studies retrieved across IEEE Xplore, SpringerLink, Elsevier ScienceDirect, MDPI, and Google Scholar, 1,236 studies were screened, resulting in 90 works selected for in-depth qualitative and quantitative synthesis. The review analyzes the evolution of lattice-based ABE in terms of mathematical foundations, security models, performance characteristics, and application domains. Particular emphasis is placed on emerging use cases in cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare, financial systems, and government compliance, each evaluated against requirements such as revocation support, lightweight design, searchability, and multi-authority governance. Quantitative synthesis reveals uneven feature coverage across the literature: searchability is supported in 45.6% of schemes and lightweight constructions in 36.7%, whereas policy hiding (16.7%) and revocation (22.2%) remain comparatively underexplored. Performance trends indicate ciphertext sizes averaging 5.8 kB per attribute, with only 12% of schemes achieving compact representations below 2 kB. Moreover, fewer than 36% of surveyed constructions provide IND-CCA security, highlighting persistent challenges in achieving robustness against adaptive adversaries. By integrating structured research questions with quantitative trend analysis, this study offers both descriptive and evidence-backed insights into the current state of lattice-based ABE. The findings identify critical gaps in efficiency, security guarantees, and standardization, and inform a forward-looking research roadmap emphasizing lightweight revocation mechanisms, efficient policy hiding, stronger IND-CCA security models, and the need for standardized benchmarking frameworks. This survey thus serves as a comprehensive reference for researchers and practitioners working on post-quantum secure access control systems, particularly in privacy-sensitive domains such as healthcare.
The advent of quantum computing poses a significant threat to traditional cryptographic algorithms, including RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and Elliptic Curve Cryptography, due to the capabilities of quantum algorithms like Shor’s algorithm. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has emerged to address these challenges, with lattice-based cryptography (LBC) being a prominent candidate. LBC, underpinned by hard mathematical problems like Learning with Errors (LWE) and Ring-LWE (RLWE), offers robust security against quantum and classical adversaries. In parallel, Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CPABE) has become a critical tool for enabling fine-grained access control in data-sharing scenarios, such as secure cloud storage and IoT. While existing CP-ABE implementations rely on bilinear pairings vulnerable to quantum attacks, lattice-based CPABE schemes provide a quantum-resistant alternative. Despite their potential, these schemes face challenges in computational efficiency, collusion resistance, and implementation correctness. Our contributions include a detailed mathematical breakdown of one of the state-of-the-art (SOTA) lattice-based CP-ABE schemes and a novel correctness proof for the same scheme.
Abstract We address the problem of user fast revocation in the lattice-based Ciphertext Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) by extending the scheme originally introduced by Zhang and Zhang [Zhang J, Zhang Z. A ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption scheme without pairings . In: International Conference on Information Security and Cryptology. Springer; 2011. p. 324–40. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34704-7_23 .]. While a lot of work exists on the construction of revocable schemes for CP-ABE based on pairings, works based on lattices are not so common, and – to the best of our knowledge – we introduce the first server-aided revocation scheme in a lattice-based CP-ABE scheme, hence being embedded in a post-quantum secure environment. In particular, we rely on semi-trusted “mediators” to provide a multi-step decryption capable of handling mediation without re-encryption. We comment on the scheme and its application, and we provide performance experiments on a prototype implementation in the Attribute-Based Encryption spin-off library of Palisade to evaluate the overhead compared with the original scheme.
This thesis is an in-depth introduction to NIST's post-quantum Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM). We begin by introducing the problem at the core of ML-KEM, known as the Module Learning With Errors (MLWE) problem. In this problem, an adversary attempts to distinguish between samples selected from a specific distribution and samples from uniformly random samples. We also discuss the hardness of the MLWE problem, under the conjecture that certain lattice problems over modules are hard. ML-KEM utilizes a variant of the Fujisaki-Okamoto transformation, which employs a weakly secure Public-Key Encryption (PKE) scheme to construct a strongly secure key-encapsulation mechanism in the Random Oracle Model (ROM). We explain the working principle of the MLWE-based public-key encryption scheme and demonstrate how ML-KEM is constructed from it. Finally, we analyze the security of ML-KEM. We provide a tight security bound for IND-CCA security of ML-KEM in ROM, under the assumption that the underlying PKE is IND-CPA secure. Additionally, we present two security theorems in the Quantum Random Oracle Model (QROM). The first theorem establishes non-tightly IND-CCA security of ML-KEM in QROM if the MLWE problem is hard to solve. The second theorem assumes that the deterministic PKE is ciphertext-indistinguishable. Under this assumption, we derive a tighter bound for the IND-CCA security of ML-KEM in QROM.