Paper 2026/1454 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2026/1454 ↗

Batched Attribute-Based Encryption from Bilinear Pairings

Abstract

Batched identity-based encryption (batched IBE), introduced by Agarwal, Fernando, and Pinkas (CRYPTO 2025), enables a key authority to issue a single succinct key that decrypts an entire batch of ciphertexts. However, existing batched encryption protocols support only identity-based access control and do not accommodate expressive attribute-based policies. We are the first to introduce Batched Attribute-Based Encryption (B-ABE), a generalization of batched encryption to the attribute-based setting. In B-ABE, ciphertexts are associated with attribute sets and batch labels, while a single batch key is bound to an access policy and a public digest of the batch. The key decrypts exactly those ciphertexts in the batch whose attributes satisfy the policy, and its size is independent of the batch size. We construct B-ABE in asymmetric bilinear groups and prove security under the standard Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) assumption in the random oracle model. We further introduce the first Threshold Batched Attribute-Based Encryption (TB-ABE), in which the master secret is distributed among L authorities via Shamir secret sharing. Any subset of at least T authorities can non-interactively generate publicly verifiable key shares that aggregate into a succinct batch key of the same asymptotic size as in the single-authority setting. We formalize security against static corruptions of up to (T-1) authorities and adaptive key-share queries and prove security under the DBDH assumption in the random oracle model.