Secure medical information sharing in cloud computing.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Cryptography
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Cloud computing enables attractive medical information sharing.
• Searchable encryption is crucial for secure medical data exchange.
• Existing public-key encryption methods lack essential features like keyword trapdoor security and efficient multi-receiver support.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel searchable encryption protocol for multi-receiver medical information sharing in a public-key environment.
• To address the limitations of previous encryption schemes regarding security, ciphertext length, and receiver management.

Main Methods:

• Utilized bilinear maps for a public-key searchable encryption scheme.
• Developed a protocol where data owners store a single encrypted file and keywords on the cloud for multiple receivers.
• Ensured constant and short ciphertext length irrespective of the number of receivers.

Main Results:

• The proposed protocol supports secure medical information sharing among multiple designated receivers.
• Achieved significantly shorter, constant-length keyword ciphertexts, independent of the receiver count.
• Maintained data owner control and awareness of data sharing.

Conclusions:

• The new protocol enhances secure medical data sharing in the cloud using public-key searchable encryption.
• It overcomes limitations of prior methods, offering improved efficiency and security.
• Security is formally proven based on the hardness of Bilinear Diffie-Hellman and Decisional Diffie-Hellman problems.