On multi-authority ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption

Abstract

In classical encryption schemes, data is encrypted under a single key that is associated with a user or group. In Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption(CP-ABE) keys are associated with attributes of users, given to them by a central trusted authority, and data is encrypted under a logical formula over these attributes. We extend this idea to the case where an arbitrary number of independent parties can be present to maintain attributes and their corresponding secret keys. We present a scheme for multi-authority CP-ABE, propose the first two constructions that fully implement the scheme, and prove their security against chosen plaintext attacks. © 2009 The Korean Mathematical Society.