Privacy-Preserving Keyword Search Over Encrypted Data in Cloud Computing

Wenhai Sun, Wenjing Lou, Y. Thomas Hou, Hui Li

Abstract: Search over encrypted data is a technique of great interest in the cloud computing era, because many believe that sensitive data has to be encrypted before outsourcing to the cloud servers in order to ensure user data privacy. Devising an efficient and secure search scheme over encrypted data involves techniques from multiple domains – information retrieval for index representation, algorithms for search efficiency, and proper design of cryptographic protocols to ensure the security and privacy of the overall system. This chapter provides a basic introduction to the problem definition, system model, and reviews the state-of-the-art mechanisms for implementing privacy-preserving keyword search over encrypted data. We also present one integrated solution, which hopefully offer more insights into this important problem.