!Oxymoron: Encrypted (Database) Search

Encrypted database systems cryptographically separate the roles of providing, administering, and accessing data. They reduce risks of a data breach, since the server(s) hosting the database can no longer access its content.

Since encrypted search was introduced in 2000, the area has grown rapidly; systems are offered by academia, start-ups and established companies. However, there is no best encrypted database or search technique. Design of these systems is a balancing act between security, functionality, performance, and usability.

This challenge is more difficult with different paradigms of databases, namely SQL, NoSQL, and NewSQL. The database evolution will continue, and the encrypted search community should be able to quickly provide functionalities consistent with newly invented databases.

This talk is aimed at providing the following:
1. an identification of primitive (base) operations across database paradigms, and corresponding encrypted search techniques that implement these operations.
2. an evaluation of the current state of encrypted search and database systems, comparing them with unencrypted systems, thus identifying key gaps in functionality.
3. an analysis of attacks against encrypted databases.