Efficient Multi-User Keyword Search over Encrypted Data in Cloud Computing

Abstract

As cloud computing becomes prevalent, more and more sensitive information are being centralized into the cloud. For the protection of data privacy, sensitive data usually have to be encrypted before outsourcing, which makes effective data utilization a very challenging task. In this paper, we propose a new method to enable effective fuzzy keyword search in a multi-user system over encrypted cloud data while maintaining keyword privacy. In this new system, differential searching privileges are supported, which is achieved with the technique of attribute-based encryption. Edit distance is utilized to quantify keywords similarity and develop fuzzy keyword search technique, which achieve optimized storage and representation overheads. We further propose a symbol-based trie-traverse searching scheme to improve the search efficiency. Through rigorous security analysis, we show that our proposed solution is secure and privacy-preserving, while correctly realizing the goal of fuzzy keyword search with multiple users.