Paper 2025/093 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2025/093 ↗

A Survey on Transciphering and Symmetric Ciphers for Homomorphic Encryption

Indranil Thakur
Angshuman Karmakar
Chaoyun Li
Bart Preneel
Abstract

Data privacy concerns are sharply rising in the current digital era, hyperdriven by cloud computing, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things. Homomorphic Encryption (HE) has emerged as an ideal technique for computing on encrypted data, but current schemes suffer from slow encryption speed and large ciphertext expansion. Practical implementation is hindered, especially when the client has limited bandwidth, memory, and computing power. In 2011, Naehrig et al. proposed transciphering, reducing computational and communication overload on the client side. This involves symmetric ciphers with minimized multiplicative complexity, referred to as HE-Friendly Ciphers (HEFCs). In this work, we present a detailed study of transciphering for HE by systematizing existing knowledge and crystallizing research challenges. Particularly we conduct a comprehensive study on state-of-the-art HEFC constructions. Our work highlights gaps, open problems, and directions for future research.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Cryptographic protocols
Publication info
Preprint.
History
2025-01-21: last updated
2025-01-21: published
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2025/093
License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/093,
      author = {Indranil Thakur and Angshuman Karmakar and Chaoyun Li and Bart Preneel},
      title = {A Survey on Transciphering and Symmetric Ciphers for Homomorphic Encryption},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/093},
      year = {2025},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/093}
}
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