ECSE: An Expressive Collaborative Searchable 
Encryption Scheme for Secure Group Data Sharing in 
Cloud Computing

Mishal Ismaeel; Chungen Xu; Lin Mei; GangQiang Duan

doi:https://doi.org/10.14445/22315373/IJMTT-V71I12P104

International Journal of Mathematics Trends and Technology

Research Article | Open Access | Download PDF

Volume 71 | Issue 12 | Year 2025 | Article Id. IJMTT-V71I12P104 | DOI : https://doi.org/10.14445/22315373/IJMTT-V71I12P104

ECSE: An Expressive Collaborative Searchable Encryption Scheme for Secure Group Data Sharing in Cloud Computing

Mishal Ismaeel, Chungen Xu, Lin Mei, GangQiang Duan

Received	Revised	Accepted	Published
11 Oct 2025	21 Nov 2025	13 Dec 2025	27 Dec 2025

Citation :

Mishal Ismaeel, Chungen Xu, Lin Mei, GangQiang Duan, "ECSE: An Expressive Collaborative Searchable Encryption Scheme for Secure Group Data Sharing in Cloud Computing," International Journal of Mathematics Trends and Technology (IJMTT), vol. 71, no. 12, pp. 19-39, 2025. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/22315373/IJMTT-V71I12P104

Abstract

With the growing usage of cloud services and multi-user collaboration, secure, privacy-preserving keyword searches are no longer optional. Conventional PEKS frameworks are susceptible to keyword-guessing attacks (KGA) and subversion attacks (SA), which become more likely when either the randomness-generating mechanism or key management fails. To address both of these risks, this work presents an Expressive Collaborative Searchable Encryption Scheme for Secure Group Data Sharing in Cloud Computing Environments (ECSE). The ECSE combines cryptographic reverse firewalls with threshold secret-sharing techniques and a collaborative approach to generating randomness, creating a robust, verified search framework. The ECSE can prevent SA attacks by employing trusted Cryptographic Randomness Generation, while it can fight KGAs by using a hybrid online/offline rate-limiting procedure with several key servers to create a ciphertext. The ECSE additionally supports Boolean search predicates, Linear Secret Sharing Schemes, and public access verification functionality to ensure that search results are reliable. Using a formal security analysis, this proposed scheme shows that the ECSE is semantically secure and resilient to semi-trusted cloud servers, key server compromise, and SA attacks. Finally, this work gives theoretical and experimental evaluations to support the conclusion that the ECSE improves security and adds functionality while maintaining acceptable efficiency. Experimental evaluation of a 2000-document dataset showed that the scheme can generate trapdoors for 15-keyword Boolean queries in less than 0.07 seconds and scales efficiently compared to TPPKS, PCSE, and TMS. Due to its Boolean expressiveness and resistance to subversion, ECSE enhances security with a slight performance overhead.

Keywords

Boolean Keyword Search, Cryptographic Reverse Firewall, Linear Secret Sharing, Subversion-resistant, Threshold Secret Sharing.

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