Attribute-Based Encryption Goes X.509

Abstract

Key authentication as well as an intended recipient not having a key available are, among others, challenges that public key infrastructures (PKIs) still face. Trusted third parties work around these issues. However, identity-based encryption (IBE) systems and later attribute-based encryption (ABE) systems were designed to address these exact challenges. Unfortunately, such schemes became only practicable after public key infrastructures have been picked up by industry. In this work, we present our approach on standing the above mentioned challenges. We propose to utilize recent developments on centralized key storage solutions to bring the features of IBE/ABE systems to PKI-based IT infrastructures. We describe our IBE/ABE emulation approach, present our prototype and give a thorough security evaluation. We found that it is possible to emulate IBE/ABE schemes without compromising security.