VeriFuzzy: A Dynamic Verifiable Fuzzy Search Service Framework for Encrypted Cloud Data

System model.
Publication
IEEE Transactions on Services Computing (TSC), 2025 [CCF-A IF 5.5]

Abstract:

Enabling search over encrypted cloud data is essential for privacy-preserving data outsourcing. While searchable encryption has evolved to support individual requirements like fuzzy matching(tolerance to typos and variants in query keywords), dynamic updates, and result verification, designing a service that supports Dynamic Verifiable Fuzzy Search (DVFS) over encrypted cloud data remains a fundamental challenge due to inherent conflicts between underlying technologies. Existing approaches struggle with simultaneously achieving efficiency, functionality, and security, often forcing impractical trade-offs.

This paper presents VeriFuzzy, a novel DVFS service framework that cohesively integrates three innovations: an Enhanced Virtual Binary Tree (EVBTree) that decouples fuzzy semantics from index logic to support $O(\log n)$ search/updates; a blockchain-reconstructed verification mechanism that ensures result integrity with logarithmic complexity; and a dual-repository state management scheme that achieves IND-CKA2 security by neutralizing branch leakage. Extensive evaluation on 3,500+ documents shows VeriFuzzy achieves 41% faster search, $5\times$ more efficient verification, and constant-time index updates compared to state-of-the-art alternatives. Our code and dataset are now open source, hoping to inspire future DVFS research.

Jie Zhang
Jie Zhang
Ph.D student in Computer Science and Technology

My research interests include data security in encryption and sharing, specifically, ciphertext sharing security under distributed networks through repeatability and integrity auditing, access control and privacy protection, blockchain technology, etc.