Somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme for secure range query process in a cloud environment

Abstract

With the development of the cloud computing, recently, many service models have appeared which are based on the cloud computing, such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and database as a service (DaaS). For DaaS, there exist many security issues. Especially, the database as a service cannot be fully secured because of some security problems. This research area of cloud computing is called as cloud security. One of the problems is that it is difficult to execute queries on encrypted data in cloud database without any information leakage. This thesis proposes a secure range query process which is based on a somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme to improve secure database functionalities. There is no sensitive information leakage in the secure range query process. The data that are stored in the cloud database are the integers which are encrypted with their binary forms by bits. A homomorphic “greater-than” algorithm is used in the process to compare two integers. Efficiency, security, and the maximum noise that can be controlled in the process are covered in the security and efficiency analysis. Parameter setting analysis of the process will also be discussed. Results of the proposed method have been analyzed through some experiments to test the secure range query process for its practicability with some relatively practical parameter settings.