Searchable encryption can be achieved using the classical method called oblivious RAM, but the resultant schemes are too inefficient to be applied in the real-world scenarios (e.g., cloud computing). Recently, a number of efficient searchable encryption schemes have been proposed under weaker security guarantees. Such schemes, however, still leak statistical information about the users' search pattern.
In this paper, we first present two concrete attack methods to show that the search pattern leakage will result in such a situation: an adversary who has some auxiliary knowledge can uncover the underlying keywords of user queries. To address this issue, we then develop a grouping-based construction (GBC) to transform an existing searchable encryption scheme to a new scheme hiding the search pattern. Finally, experiments based on the real-world dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of our attack methods and the feasibility of our construction.
Category / Keywords: search pattern, searchable encryption, cloud computing, fake query, grouping-based construction Original Publication (in the same form): Information Sciences