Abstract
To provide better overall performance, identity (ID)-based signcryption (IBSC) has been constructed by combining ID-based signature (IBS) and ID-based encryption (IBE) in a secure manner. Undoubtedly, the IBSC fulfills the authentication and the confidentiality by signature and encryption, respectively. All the previously proposed IBSC schemes are inseparable in the sense that the two-layer sign-then-encrypt procedure must be performed only by the same entity. However, the entities, such as wireless sensors and smart cards, are resource-constrained and become time consuming in executing the two-layer sign-then-encrypt procedure. Nowadays, the usage of mobile cloud computing is gaining expanding interest which provides scalable and virtualized services over the Internet or wireless networks while users with resource-constrained devices can enjoy the advantages of mobile cloud computing environments. Hence, we aim to reduce the computational cost for resource-constrained devices by employing a third party. In this article, we present the first separable ID-based signcryption (SIBSC) scheme in which the signing and encrypting layers are performed by the device and a third party, respectively. Under the computation Diffie–Hellman (CDH) and bilinear Diffie–Hellman (BDH) assumptions, we demonstrate that the proposed SIBSC scheme offers the provable security of authentication and confidentiality while retaining communication performance.