Practical and Dynamic Attribute-Based Keyword Search Supporting Numeric Comparisons Over Encrypted Cloud Data

The attribute-based keyword search (ABKS), which simultaneously achieves searching and fine-grained access control over encrypted data, is frequently applied in cloud computing environments characterized by data storage and sharing. Recently, inspired by attribute-based encryption (ABE) and searchable encryption (SE) primitives, several ABKS schemes have been presented. However, almost all existing ABKS schemes actually only provide an attribute-based keyword equality match function and do not have a structural index to support practical search efficiency and dynamic data updates in real-world applications. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to realize an attribute-based keyword search construction supporting numerical comparison expressions with the practical search efficient and dynamic data update capacity (ABKS-NICEST), based on our proposed attribute-based keyword secure search scheme supporting numerical comparison expressions (ABKS-NICE) and an exclusive OR-chain -based inverted index structure. To the best of our knowledge, ABKS-NICEST is the first attributed-based keyword search scheme with practical search efficiency and dynamic data update capacity. In addition, numerical values are an important and common attribute, so providing comparison expressions among numerical values can greatly enhance the expressivity of access policy. Therefore, we use the prefix membership verification technique to design a method to support any numeric comparison expression in a flexible and uniform manner. Through theoretical and experimental evaluations, we determine that ABKS-NICEST is the most efficient ABKS scheme.