Searchable encryption enables efficient retrieval of encrypted data stored in cloud environments while preserving data confidentiality. Within this context, Public Key Encryption with Keyword Search (PEKS) allows data users to perform keyword-based searches using their public-private key pairs. However, traditional PEKS schemes remain vulnerable to Inside Keyword Guessing Attacks (IKGA), which led to the introduction of the Public-Key Authenticated Encryption with Keyword Search (PAEKS) paradigm to enhance resilience against insider threats. Despite this advancement, most existing PAEKS schemes rely on number-theoretic assumptions, such as the discrete logarithm problem, thereby becoming insecure in the presence of against quantum adversaries. Consequently, recent research has focused on developing quantum-resistant, lattice-based PAEKS schemes. Although schemes based on the Learning with Errors (LWE) problem provide strong post-quantum security, they often incur high computational and communication costs, limiting their practicality in large-scale cloud environments. To overcome these limitations, this work presents an efficient and verifiable PAEKS scheme based on the Middle-Product LWE (MP-LWE) problem, which preserves the underlying security guarantees while significantly improving performance. Formal security analysis demonstrates resistance against Chosen Keyword Attack (CKA) and IKGA in the random oracle (RO) model. Experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme achieves substantially lower computational and communication overheads compared to existing schemes, while maintaining robust post-quantum security.
Searchable encryption enables efficient retrieval of encrypted data stored in cloud environments while preserving data confidentiality. Within this context, Public Key Encryption with Keyword Search (PEKS) allows data users to perform keyword-based searches using their public-private key pairs. However, traditional PEKS schemes remain vulnerable to Inside Keyword Guessing Attacks (IKGA), which led to the introduction of the Public-Key Authenticated Encryption with Keyword Search (PAEKS) paradigm to enhance resilience against insider threats. Despite this advancement, most existing PAEKS schemes rely on number-theoretic assumptions, such as the discrete logarithm problem, thereby becoming insecure in the presence of against quantum adversaries. Consequently, recent research has focused on developing quantum-resistant, lattice-based PAEKS schemes. Although schemes based on the Learning with Errors (LWE) problem provide strong post-quantum security, they often incur high computational and communication costs, limiting their practicality in large-scale cloud environments. To overcome these limitations, this work presents an efficient and verifiable PAEKS scheme based on the Middle-Product LWE (MP-LWE) problem, which preserves the underlying security guarantees while significantly improving performance. Formal security analysis demonstrates resistance against Chosen Keyword Attack (CKA) and IKGA in the random oracle (RO) model. Experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme achieves substantially lower computational and communication overheads compared to existing schemes, while maintaining robust post-quantum security.
With the rapid development of cloud computing, an increasing number of companies are adopting cloud storage technology to reduce overhead. However, to ensure the privacy of sensitive data, the uploaded data need to be encrypted before being outsourced to the cloud. The concept of public-key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) was introduced by Boneh et al. to provide flexible usage of the encrypted data. Unfortunately, most of the PEKS schemes are not secure against inside keyword guessing attacks (IKGA), so the keyword information of the trapdoor may be leaked to the adversary. To solve this issue, Huang and Li presented public key authenticated encryption with keyword search (PAEKS) in which the trapdoor generated by the receiver is only valid for authenticated ciphertexts. With their seminal work, many PAEKS schemes have been introduced for the enhanced security of PAEKS. Some of them further consider the upcoming quantum attacks. However, our cryptanalysis indicated that in fact, these schemes could not withstand IKGA. To fight against the attacks from quantum adversaries and support the privacy-preserving search functionality, we first introduce a novel generic PAEKS construction in this work. Then, we further present the first quantum-resistant PAEKS instantiation based on lattices. The security proofs show that our instantiation not only satisfies the basic requirements but also achieves enhanced security models, namely the multi-ciphertext indistinguishability and multi-trapdoor privacy. Furthermore, the comparative results indicate that with only some additional expenditure, the proposed instantiation provides more secure properties, making it suitable for more diverse application environments.
Multi-Writer Searchable Encryption, also known as public-key encryption with keyword search(PEKS), serves a wide spectrum of data sharing applications. It allows users to search over encrypted data encrypted via different keys. However, most of the existing PEKS schemes are built on classic security assumptions, which are proven to be untenable to overcome the threats of quantum computers. To address the above problem, in this paper, we propose a lattice-based searchable encryption scheme from the learning with errors (LWE) hardness assumption. Specifically, we observe that the keys of each user in a basic scheme are composed of large-sized matrices and basis of the lattice. To reduce the complexity of key management, our scheme is designed to enable users to directly use their identity for data encryption. We present several optimization techniques for implementation to make our design nearly practical. For completeness, we conduct rigorous security, complexity, and parameter analysis on our scheme, and perform comprehensive evaluations at a commodity machine. With a scenario of 100 users, the cost of key generation for each user is 125s, and the cost of searching a document with 1000 keywords is 13.4ms.
Cloud-assisted Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) relies on cloud computing to provide massive data storage services. To ensure the confidentiality, sensitive industrial data need to be encrypted before being outsourced to cloud storage server. Public-key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) enables users to search target encrypted data by keywords. However, most existing PEKS schemes are based on conventional hardness assumptions, which are vulnerable to adversaries equipped with quantum computers in the near future. Moreover, they suffer from key exposure, and thus the security would be broken once the keys are compromised. In this paper, we propose a forward secure PEKS scheme (FS-PEKS) based on lattice assumptions for cloud-assisted IIoT, which is post-quantum secure. We integrate a lattice-based delegation mechanism into FS-PEKS to achieve forward security, such that the security of the system is still guaranteed even the keys are compromised by the adversaries. We define the first formal security model on forward security of PEKS, and prove the security of FS-PEKS under the model. As the keywords of industrial data are with inherently low entropy, we further extend FS-PEKS to resist insider keyword guessing attacks (IKGA). The comprehensive performance evaluation demonstrates that FS-PEKS is practical for cloud-assisted IIoT.
Public key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) is a method to search over encrypted data in the cloud. However, traditional PEKS schemes are based on classical mathematical problems, which are vulnerable to quantum attacks. To address the issues, several authors proposed lattice-based PEKS. Although lattice-based PEKS resist quantum attacks, they are inefficient and also suffer from certificate management problem (CMP) or key escrow problem (KEP). To address these issues, in this paper, we propose module lattice-based certificateless encryption with keyword search (ML-CLEKS) without trapdoor algorithms. The security of ML-CLEKS is proved against TYPE-I and TYPE-II adversaries based on Module Learning with Error (Module LWE) in random oracle model. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that ML-CLEKS is efficient.
With the advancement in quantum computing technology, the number theory-based hard problems underlying traditional searchable encryption algorithms are now vulnerable to efficient quantum attacks. To address this challenge, this paper proposes Dilithium-PAEKS (Dilithium-Public Authenticated Encryption with Keyword Search), a searchable encryption scheme based on the post-quantum cryptographic algorithm CRYSTALS-Dilithium. By transforming the verification relationship of digital signatures into a matching relationship between trapdoors and ciphertexts, the scheme not only meets the functional requirements of searchable encryption but also demonstrates quantum resistance. The implementation enhances algorithm efficiency through keyword-based signatures and dynamic matching testing mechanisms. The security of the scheme is defined by the MLWE and MSIS hard problems, with proofs of keyword ciphertext indistinguishability and trapdoor indistinguishability under the random oracle model. Additionally, the scheme provides strong resistance against both outside and insider keyword guessing attacks through sender–receiver binding mechanisms and trapdoor indistinguishability properties. Experimental results show that, compared to the post-quantum schemes CP-Absel and LB-FSSE, the proposed scheme demonstrates superior overall computational efficiency while maintaining stronger quantum resistance than the traditional scheme SM9-PAEKS.
Since the convenience and advancement of cloud applications, many users (e.g., companies or individuals) adopt remote cloud services to reduce the local storage overload and computing consumption. However, before transferring them to the cloud server, users always encrypt outsourced data for the privacy of important data, which deprives flexible usage of these data. Public key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) undoubtedly offers a precise resolution to this issue. Unfortunately, most PEKS schemes cannot fight against quantum computing attackers, which is increasingly a research hotspot. To achieve postquantum security and privacy-preserving search function, we propose a quantum-resistant PEKS scheme named IsoqurPEKS. Our proposed instantiation satisfies basic semantic security indistinguishable against chosen keyword attack (IND-CKA), and IsoqurPEKS is proved to be secure under the security model. Furthermore, we compare IsoqurPEKS with the other eight current PEKS schemes with respect to security properties, communication, and computation costs. The comparison results indicate that the proposed scheme has the best security and performance among the nine PEKS schemes.