Enhancing performance of searchable encryption in cloud computing

Abstract

Predicate evaluation on encrypted data is a challenge that modern cryptography is starting to address. The advantages of constructing logical primitives that are able to operate on encrypted data are numerous, such as allowing untrusted parties to take decisions without actually having access to the plaintext. Systems that offer these methods are grouped under the name of searchable encryption systems. One of the challenges that searchable encryption faces today is related to computational and bandwidth costs, because the mathematical operations involved are expensive. Recent algorithms such as Hidden Vector Encryption exhibit improved efficiency, but for large scale systems the optimizations are often not enough. Many problems that can be solved using searchable encryption are embarrassingly parallel. Using a prototype, we show that parallel solutions offer sufficient cost reduction so that large scale applications become feasible.