A joint announcement regarding the development of a new advanced encryption or fine-grained encryption scheme has been announced by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation or NTT (News - Alert) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. The security risks in cloud computing can be potentially solved by this fine-grained encryption scheme. The most advanced logic in the encryption-decryption mechanism is achieved by this new encryption scheme. Sophisticated and fine-grained data transmission/access control is therefore enabled.

The recent spread of cloud computing and other advanced network systems is due to the rapid development of information and communication technology. Private or confidential information is however transmitted by these networks to the servers for processing. Hence as compared to the current systems which use symmetric and public key encryption for network security, these networks require higher security. A more sophisticated encryption scheme is therefore required by these advanced networks.

The scheme developed by NTT and Mitsubishi (News - Alert) Electric has the most advanced logic as an encryption-decryption mechanism. A mathematical approach called the "dual pairing vector spaces” has been used to develop this scheme. Highly confidential information can be maintained by the network users in an encrypted form even in cloud computing environments. Cloud computing applications can therefore be expanded to fields where they could previously not be applied with this achievement.

The 30th International Cryptology Conference, “CRYPTO 2010” will be held in Santa Barbara, California from August 15 to 19, 2010. At this conference, the details of the scheme will be presented by the two companies.

The most general logic has been achieved by the new fine-grained encryption scheme. The most advanced logic that comprehends those of the existing fine-grained encryption schemes has been achieved by the new, fine-grained encryption scheme developed by the two companies. Using a combination of AND, OR, NOT and threshold gates, this logic can be realized. The fine-grained encryption scheme will be available to a variety of applications.

An important role in achieving secure environments for cloud computing and other advanced network services is expected to be played by the new encryption scheme developed by the two companies. The efficient implementation and utilization of this scheme for various applications will be studied by the two companies.