Secure Outsourcing of Two Standard Identity-Based Cryptosystems

Abstract

In the last two decades, bilinear pairings have found many applications in cryptography. Meanwhile, identity-based cryptosystems based on bilinear pairings have received particular attention. The IEEE, IETF, and ISO organizations have been working on standardizing pairing-based cryptographic schemes. The Boneh-Franklin identity-based encryption and Sakai-Kasahara identity-based signature are the most well-known identity-based schemes that have been standardized. So far, researchers have proposed various schemes to reduce the computational overhead of pairing operations. All these schemes are trying to outsource pairing operations securely. However, besides pairing operations, there are other essential and costly operations in pairing-based cryptography and identity-based schemes, including scalar multiplication on elliptic curves. In this research, we outsource the Boneh-Franklin encryption in a more secure and efficient (in terms of computational and communication complexity) way than existing schemes. Also, we outsource the BLMQ signature (based on Sakai-Kasahara) scheme for the first time. The proposed schemes are secure in the OMTUP model. Also, unlike previous schemes, we considered communication channels insecure. Moreover, compared with the trivial solution, which outsources every single operation (such as pairing, scalar multiplication, and modular exponentiation) as a separate subroutine, our schemes offer less complexity by seamlessly outsourcing the whole encryption scheme for the first time. © 2020 ISC.