Verifiable Searchable Symmetric Encryption from Indistinguishability Obfuscation.

ABSTRACTSearchable symmetric encryption (SSE) allows a client to encrypt his data in such a manner that the data can be efficiently searched. SSE has practical application in cloud storage, where a client outsources his encrypted data to a cloud server while maintaining the searchable ability over his data. Most of the current SSE schemes assume that the cloud server is honest-but-curious. However, the cloud may actively cheat on the search process to keep its cost low. In this paper, we focus on the malicious cloud model and propose a new verifiable searchable symmetric encryption scheme. Our scheme is built on the secure indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) and can be considered as the first step to apply iO in the SSE field. Moreover, our scheme can be easily extended to multiple functionalities, such as conjunctive and boolean queries. Furthermore, it can be extended to realize a publicly verifiable SSE. Thorough analysis shows that our scheme is secure and achieves a better performance.