Paper 2025/093

A Survey on Transciphering and Symmetric Ciphers for Homomorphic Encryption

Indranil Thakur, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India
Angshuman Karmakar, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India
Chaoyun Li, University of Surrey, UK
Bart Preneel, COSIC, KU Leuven
Abstract

Data privacy concerns are sharply rising in the current digital era, hyperdriven by cloud computing, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things. Homomorphic Encryption (HE) has emerged as an ideal technique for computing on encrypted data, but current schemes suffer from slow encryption speed and large ciphertext expansion. Practical implementation is hindered, especially when the client has limited bandwidth, memory, and computing power. In 2011, Naehrig et al. proposed transciphering, reducing computational and communication overload on the client side. This involves symmetric ciphers with minimized multiplicative complexity, referred to as HE-Friendly Ciphers (HEFCs). In this work, we present a detailed study of transciphering for HE by systematizing existing knowledge and crystallizing research challenges. Particularly we conduct a comprehensive study on state-of-the-art HEFC constructions. Our work highlights gaps, open problems, and directions for future research.

Note: This paper was submitted to a journal on December 18, 2024.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Cryptographic protocols
Publication info
Preprint.
Keywords
Homomorphic EncryptionSymmetric CryptographyData PrivacyCloud ComputingTranscipheringHybrid Homomorphic EncryptionBlock CipherStream Cipher
Contact author(s)
indra @ cse iitk ac in
angshuman @ cse iitk ac in
c li @ surrey ac uk
bart preneel @ esat kuleuven be
History
2025-01-22: approved
2025-01-21: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2025/093
License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/093,
      author = {Indranil Thakur and Angshuman Karmakar and Chaoyun Li and Bart Preneel},
      title = {A Survey on Transciphering and Symmetric Ciphers for Homomorphic Encryption},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/093},
      year = {2025},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/093}
}
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