Search in Encrypted Data

Recently, the concept of Search in Encrypted Data (SED) has become a highlight in cryptography. A SED scheme enables a client to have third-party server(s) perform certain search functionalities on the encrypted data. In this chapter, the authors conduct a systematic study on SED schemes. First, they describe three application scenarios and identify the desirable security requirements. Second, they provide two orthogonal categorizations and review the related security models for each category of SED schemes. Third, the authors analyze the practical issues related to SED schemes and identify some future research directions.