A structured review of lattice based attribute based encryption methods for post quantum security

The rapid advancement of quantum computing threatens to undermine classical cryptographic primitives, creating an urgent need for post-quantum secure alternatives. Lattice-based Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) has emerged as a promising direction, combining fine-grained access control with quantum resistance derived from lattice assumptions such as Learning With Errors (LWE) and Ring-LWE. This paper presents a systematic literature review of lattice-based ABE schemes published between 2022 and 2025, following the PRISMA methodology to ensure a rigorous and transparent study selection process. From an initial corpus of more than 7,800 studies retrieved across IEEE Xplore, SpringerLink, Elsevier ScienceDirect, MDPI, and Google Scholar, 1,236 studies were screened, resulting in 90 works selected for in-depth qualitative and quantitative synthesis. The review analyzes the evolution of lattice-based ABE in terms of mathematical foundations, security models, performance characteristics, and application domains. Particular emphasis is placed on emerging use cases in cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare, financial systems, and government compliance, each evaluated against requirements such as revocation support, lightweight design, searchability, and multi-authority governance. Quantitative synthesis reveals uneven feature coverage across the literature: searchability is supported in 45.6% of schemes and lightweight constructions in 36.7%, whereas policy hiding (16.7%) and revocation (22.2%) remain comparatively underexplored. Performance trends indicate ciphertext sizes averaging 5.8 kB per attribute, with only 12% of schemes achieving compact representations below 2 kB. Moreover, fewer than 36% of surveyed constructions provide IND-CCA security, highlighting persistent challenges in achieving robustness against adaptive adversaries. By integrating structured research questions with quantitative trend analysis, this study offers both descriptive and evidence-backed insights into the current state of lattice-based ABE. The findings identify critical gaps in efficiency, security guarantees, and standardization, and inform a forward-looking research roadmap emphasizing lightweight revocation mechanisms, efficient policy hiding, stronger IND-CCA security models, and the need for standardized benchmarking frameworks. This survey thus serves as a comprehensive reference for researchers and practitioners working on post-quantum secure access control systems, particularly in privacy-sensitive domains such as healthcare.