A Secure Ciphertext Self-Destruction Scheme with Attribute-Based Encryption

The secure destruction of expired data is one of the important contents in the research of cloud storage security. Applying the attribute-based encryption (ABE) and the distributed hash table (DHT) technology to the process of data destruction, we propose a secure ciphertext self-destruction scheme with attribute-based encryption called SCSD. In SCSD scheme, the sensitive data is first encrypted under an access key and then the ciphertext shares are stored in the DHT network along with the attribute shares. Meanwhile, the rest of the sensitive data ciphertext and the shares of access key ciphertext constitute the encapsulated self-destruction object (EDO), which is stored in the cloud. When the sensitive data is expired, the nodes in DHT networks can automatically discard the ciphertext shares and the attribute shares, which can make the ciphertext and the access key unrecoverable. Thus, we realize secure ciphertext self-destruction. Compared with the current schemes, our SCSD scheme not only can support efficient data encryption and fine-grained access control in lifetime and secure self-destruction after expiry, but also can resist the traditional cryptanalysis attack as well as the Sybil attack in the DHT network.