Hybrid Cipher-Text Key Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (HCKP-ABE): The Performance Analysis and Scalability in Virtual Machines

Abstract

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) has appeared as a promising advanced cryptographic approach that has emerged is a viable option for secure sharing of data. ABE is particularly useful in scenarios where access to the data should be limited to authorized users depending on their attributes. AB encryption, such as Ciphertext Policy, enables data owners to specify fine-grained access control policies for encryption, based on user attributes. This assures that only people with the necessary credentials may decode and access the encrypted data, providing an additional layer of security. Key Policy ensures secure data access by attaching rules to encrypted information, enabling decryption only for users with matching characteristics. However, in most previous schemes, the execution time for Cipher-Text Key policy Attribute-Based Encryption has been a significant challenge. To overcome this issue, the proposed works have implemented an effective encryption and decryption process. In this paper provide extensive research of the intricacies of the implementation process, evaluating the performance of the developed Hybrid Cipher-Text Key policy Attribute- Based Encryption (HCKP-ABE) system and presenting a comparative analysis of existing schemes. Hybrid Cipher-Text Key policy Attribute-Based Encryption offers significant performance advantages over existing schemes such as KP-ABE RSA & AES. Our performance evaluation revealed that the execution time increases with the number of users and attributes. The results show HCKPABE has the smallest key size (512 bits) and the fastest execution time (0.0189 seconds). KP-ABE has a key size (512 bits) and a longer execution time (0.0483 seconds). RSA & AES has the largest key size (2048 bits) and the slowest execution time (0.0295 seconds). HCKP-ABE's pairing-based cryptography enables efficient attribute-based encryption and decryption, and it is a suitable choice for scenarios requiring fine-grained access control and secure data sharing, particularly when the number of users is relatively small compared to the number of attributes.