A Secure Data Sharing Scheme for 6G-enabled IIoT Based on Attribute-Based Encryption to Address Unauthorized Access Risks

6G is expected to be the foundational infrastructure for a hyper-connected future, enabling the seamless integration of the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). 6G-enabled cloud-edge-device collaboration architecture is also the new paradigm for data sharing in IIoT. Ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) effectively guarantees data confidentiality and enables one-to-many data sharing. However, current CP-ABE schemes lack updatable and auditable access control for emergencies and fail to eradicate attribute private key abuse. These shortcomings expose 6G systems to unauthorized access risks. To address such risks, this paper proposes a cloud-edge-device collaborative attribute-based encryption data sharing scheme for 6G-enabled IIoT called CEDC-ABE. CEDC-ABE constructs an updatable and auditable break-glass access control that is closely integrated with CP-ABE for emergencies, which achieves the update of break-glass ciphertexts and key. CEDC-ABE sets a key auditing algorithm before the outsourced decryption to solve the attribute private key abuse at the root. A user whose identity identifier is consistent with the key identifier can perform the next outsourced decryption, otherwise the user will be revoked. CEDC-ABE integrates the above algorithms with the 6G-enabled collaborative cloud-side-device architecture. Analysis demonstrates that CEDC-ABE is not only secure but also lightweight.