Authentication and integrity in outsourced databases

Abstract

In the Outsourced Database (ODB) model, entities outsource their data management needs to a third-party service provider. Such a service provider offers mechanisms for its clients to create, store, update, and access (query) their databases. This work provides mechanisms to ensure data integrity and authenticity for outsourced databases. Specifically, this article provides mechanisms that assure the querier that the query results have not been tampered with and are authentic (with respect to the actual data owner). It investigates both the security and efficiency aspects of the problem and constructs several secure and practical schemes that facilitate the integrity and authenticity of query replies while incurring low computational and communication costs.