Haochen Bao¹, Lingyun Yuan^1,2,*, Tianyu Xie^1,2, Han Chen¹, Hui Dai¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.1, pp. 1-30, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.069240 - 10 November 2025

Abstract In the age of big data, ensuring data privacy while enabling efficient encrypted data retrieval has become a critical challenge. Traditional searchable encryption schemes face difficulties in handling complex semantic queries. Additionally, they typically rely on honest but curious cloud servers, which introduces the risk of repudiation. Furthermore, the combined operations of search and verification increase system load, thereby reducing performance. Traditional verification mechanisms, which rely on complex hash constructions, suffer from low verification efficiency. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a blockchain-based contextual semantic-aware ciphertext retrieval scheme with efficient verification. Building on existing… More >

Daskshnamoorthy Manivannan^*

Journal of Cyber Security, Vol.7, pp. 505-531, 2025, DOI:10.32604/jcs.2025.072810 - 28 November 2025

Abstract Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) secures data by linking decryption rights to user attributes rather than user identities, enabling fine-grained access control. While ABE is effective for enforcing access policies, integrating it with Searchable Encryption (SE)—which allows searching encrypted data without decryption—remains a complex challenge. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of ABE schemes that support SE proposed over the past decade. It critically analyzes their strengths, limitations, and access control capabilities. The survey offers insights into the security, efficiency, and practical applicability of these schemes, outlines the current landscape of ABE-integrated SE, and identifies key challenges More >

Hongliang Tian, Zhong Fan^*, Zhiyang Ruan, Aomen Zhao

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.83, No.3, pp. 5199-5217, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.063274 - 19 May 2025

Abstract With the continuous growth of exponential data in IoT, it is usually chosen to outsource data to the cloud server. However, cloud servers are usually provided by third parties, and there is a risk of privacy leakage. Encrypting data can ensure its security, but at the same time, it loses the retrieval function of IoT data. Searchable Encryption (SE) can achieve direct retrieval based on ciphertext data. The traditional searchable encryption scheme has the problems of imperfect function, low retrieval efficiency, inaccurate retrieval results, and centralized cloud servers being vulnerable and untrustworthy. This paper proposes… More >

Jingjing Nie^1,*, Zhenhua Chen²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.79, No.3, pp. 4763-4779, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.051181 - 20 June 2024

Abstract The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is an application of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the medical field. It is a cutting-edge technique that connects medical sensors and their applications to healthcare systems, which is essential in smart healthcare. However, Personal Health Records (PHRs) are normally kept in public cloud servers controlled by IoMT service providers, so privacy and security incidents may be frequent. Fortunately, Searchable Encryption (SE), which can be used to execute queries on encrypted data, can address the issue above. Nevertheless, most existing SE schemes cannot solve the vector dominance threshold… More >

Yanzhong Sun¹, Xiaoni Du^1,*, Shufen Niu², Xiaodong Yang²

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.3, pp. 3287-3310, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.043589 - 11 March 2024

Abstract Traditional email systems can only achieve one-way communication, which means only the receiver is allowed to search for emails on the email server. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based certificateless bidirectional authenticated searchable encryption model for a cloud email system named certificateless authenticated bidirectional searchable encryption (CL-BSE) by combining the storage function of cloud server with the communication function of email server. In the new model, not only can the data receiver search for the relevant content by generating its own trapdoor, but the data owner also can retrieve the content in the same… More >

Peng Liu¹, Qian He^1,*, Baokang Zhao², Biao Guo¹, Zhongyi Zhai¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.76, No.3, pp. 3325-3343, 2023, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2023.041167 - 08 October 2023

Abstract Cloud storage and edge computing are utilized to address the storage and computational challenges arising from the exponential data growth in IoT. However, data privacy is potentially risky when data is outsourced to cloud servers or edge services. While data encryption ensures data confidentiality, it can impede data sharing and retrieval. Attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE) is proposed as an effective technique for enhancing data security and privacy. Nevertheless, ABSE has its limitations, such as single attribute authorization failure, privacy leakage during the search process, and high decryption overhead. This paper presents a novel approach called… More >

Zhen Wang, Qiu-yu Zhang^*, Ling-tao Meng, Yi-lin Liu

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.75, No.3, pp. 6161-6184, 2023, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2023.037134 - 29 April 2023

Abstract To solve the problem that the existing ciphertext domain image retrieval system is challenging to balance security, retrieval efficiency, and retrieval accuracy. This research suggests a searchable encryption and deep hashing-based secure image retrieval technique that extracts more expressive image features and constructs a secure, searchable encryption scheme. First, a deep learning framework based on residual network and transfer learning model is designed to extract more representative image deep features. Secondly, the central similarity is used to quantify and construct the deep hash sequence of features. The Paillier homomorphic encryption encrypts the deep hash sequence… More >

Qing Miao¹, Lan Guo¹, Yang Lu^1,*, Zhongqi Wang²

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.35, No.3, pp. 2737-2754, 2023, DOI:10.32604/iasc.2023.028693 - 17 August 2022

Abstract Attribute-based encryption with keyword search (ABEKS) is a novel cryptographic paradigm that can be used to implement fine-grained access control and retrieve ciphertexts without disclosing the sensitive information. It is a perfect combination of attribute-based encryption (ABE) and public key encryption with keyword search (PEKS). Nevertheless, most of the existing ABEKS schemes have limited search capabilities and only support single or simple conjunctive keyword search. Due to the weak search capability and inaccurate search results, it is difficult to apply these schemes to practical applications. In this paper, an efficient expressive ABEKS (EABEKS) scheme supporting More >

Hyun Sook Rhee^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.73, No.1, pp. 69-85, 2022, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2022.026751 - 18 May 2022

Abstract As the use of cloud storage for various services increases, the amount of private personal information along with data stored in the cloud storage is also increasing. To remotely use the data stored on the cloud storage, the data to be stored needs to be encrypted for this reason. Since “searchable encryption” is enable to search on the encrypted data without any decryption, it is one of convenient solutions for secure data management. A public key encryption with keyword search (for short, PEKS) is one of searchable encryptions. Abdalla et al. firstly defined IND-CCA security… More >

Gang Xu¹, Yibo Cao¹, Shiyuan Xu¹, Xin Liu^2,*, Xiu-Bo Chen³, Yiying Yu¹, Xiaojun Wang⁴

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.72, No.3, pp. 5429-5441, 2022, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2022.028562 - 21 April 2022

Abstract With the increasing popularity of cloud storage, data security on the cloud has become increasingly visible. Searchable encryption has the ability to realize the privacy protection and security of data in the cloud. However, with the continuous development of quantum computing, the standard Public-key Encryption with Keyword Search (PEKS) scheme cannot resist quantum-based keyword guessing attacks. Further, the credibility of the server also poses a significant threat to the security of the retrieval process. This paper proposes a searchable encryption scheme based on lattice cryptography using blockchain to address the above problems. Firstly, we design More >