An efficient attribute-based online/offline searchable encryption and its application in cloud-based reliable smart grid

Abstract Recently the cloud computing popularity is becoming high, and most of the organizations turned to outsource their sensitive data and maintenance to the cloud server. However, outsourcing sensitive data to the cloud raises both data security and confidentiality question. Consequently, encryption techniques play an important role in securing data within the cloud. Although outsourcing data in an encrypted form protect the data, searching and data retrieving encrypted data is a challenge. Therefore, to facilitate the burden of working on encrypted data, this paper introduces an attribute-based online/offline searchable encryption scheme with the following contributions: First, encryption and trapdoor algorithms separated into two phases. Second, both the message encryption and attribute control policy are performed at offline phase. Third, we prove that the proposed scheme is secure against both chosen plaintext and chosen keyword attacks. Finally, we explain the applicability of the proposed scheme in cloud-based smart grid. Cloud computing, due to its nature, needs adaptive scheme to tackle some of its challenges.