Survey on Homomorphic Encryption

The process of transforming plain text data into a secret code known as cipher text is known as encryption. The decryption procedure can be used to transform cypher text back to plain text. Homomorphic encryption is a technique which enables users to perform manipulations or computations on encrypted data itself without ever revealing the plaintext to anyone. The decryption can only be performed using private keys owned by the data owner only. In homomorphic encryption the resulting ciphertext has the same structure or form as the result generated without using HE on the same data. The structure or form of data remains the same, this property is called homomorphism. Many researchers have identified various applications of HE in different fields, mostly it is used in privacy preserving areas or where data is outsourced to third parties. The aim of this paper is to present a literature survey on different homomorphic encryption techniques and classifications. HE applications in cloud computing, electronic voting, internet of things are also reviewed with their limitations and future scope.