Secure Image Retrieval in an Untrusted Cloud Environment Using Homomorphic and Attribute-Based Encryption

The increasing popularity of cloud computing has led to a growing demand for efficient and secure data storage and retrieval. This is particularly challenging when dealing with image data, which often contains sensitive information that must be protected to ensure privacy and confidentiality. This paper proposes a framework for secure image retrieval in an untrusted cloud environment. A combination of cryptographic techniques and access control policies has been used to address the challenges of secure image retrieval. Specifically, homomorphic encryption enables the secure computation of image features without compromising the privacy of the underlying data. Additionally, we incorporate a novel access control mechanism based on attribute-based encryption (ABE), which allows for fine-grained access control based on user attributes such as job title or department. The proposed framework has a wide range of applications in the fields such as health care, finance, and government, where the need for secure storage and retrieval of image data is critical. By leveraging homomorphic encryption and ABE, the proposed framework provides strong protection against unauthorized access while maintaining high levels of flexibility and scalability. The potential consequences of unauthorized access to sensitive image data can be severe, ranging from personal privacy violations to financial fraud and identity theft. To evaluate the performance of our system, we conduct extensive simulations and achieve high levels of security and efficiency in retrieving image data from an untrusted cloud environment.