A Multi-Key with Partially Homomorphic Encryption Scheme for Low-End Devices Ensuring Data Integrity

Abstract

In today’s hyperconnected world, the Internet of Things and Cloud Computing complement each other in several areas. Cloud Computing provides IoT systems with an efficient and flexible environment that supports application requirements such as real-time control/monitoring, scalability, fault tolerance, and numerous security services. Hardware and software limitations of IoT devices can be mitigated using the massive on-demand cloud resources. However, IoT cloud-based solutions pose some security and privacy concerns, specifically when an untrusted cloud is used. This calls for strong encryption schemes that allow operations on data in an encrypted format without compromising the encryption. This paper presents an asymmetric multi-key and partially homomorphic encryption scheme. The scheme provides the addition operation by encrypting each decimal digit of the given integer number separately using a special key. In addition, data integrity processes are performed when an untrusted third party performs homomorphic operations on encrypted data. The proposed work considers the most widely known issues like the encrypted data size, slow operations at the hardware level, and high computing costs at the provider level. The size of generated ciphertext is almost equal to the size of the plaintext, and order-preserving is ensured using an asymmetrical encryption version.

Keywords

• lightweight cryptography
• homomorphic encryption
• multi-key encryption
• privacy-preserving
• cloud data integrity