A Public Key Searchable Encryption Scheme with Cryptographic Reverse Firewalls in Heterogeneous Environment

Amid the swift development of cloud technologies and the widespread adoption of big data solutions, concerns surrounding data security and privacy have become increasingly significant. As a key privacy-preserving tool, searchable encryption allows users to effectively search through encrypted data while preserving its confidentiality. Nevertheless, current search encryption techniques often require both parties to use identical cryptographic systems, limiting their applicability in diverse environments. To overcome this issue, this paper introduces a public-key searchable encryption method tailored for heterogeneous contexts. For enhanced security, it also employs a cryptographic reverse firewall that re-randomizes encrypted information at the client end before transferring it to cloud storage. Furthermore, a thorough security evaluation of the proposed method is conducted, including resistance to internal keyword guessing attacks (IKGA), multi-trapdoor privacy (MTP), and protection against algorithm substitution attacks (ASA). Theoretical analysis and empirical tests validate the scheme's efficiency and security in heterogeneous settings.