Overview and Considerations of Access Control Based on Attribute Encryption

Encryption technology can be incorporated into access control mechanisms based on user identities, user attributes, or resource attributes. Traditional public-key encryption requires different data to have different keys that can be distributed to users who satisfy perspective access control policies along with the encrypted version of the data. However, some distributed or pervasive system environments wish to avoid the public-key encryption’s all-or-nothing data access limitation when considering their performance requirements. Attribute-based encryption incorporates access control policies and attributes with encryption and decryption functions and a one-to-many authorization scheme that requires fewer keys than public-key encryption. It also utilizes collusion-resistance, which provides a more efficient and flexible attribute-based access control mechanism that supports high-performance systems (e.g., cloud, IoT, disrupt-tolerant networks, wireless sensor networks, mobile ad-hoc networks, and public search service systems).