Publish/subscribe (pub/sub) is an attractive communication paradigm for
large-scale distributed applications running across multiple administrative
domains. Pub/sub allows event-based information dissemination based on
constraints on the nature of the data rather than on pre-established
communication channels. It is a natural fit for deployment in untrusted
environments such as public clouds linking applications across multiple sites.
However, pub/sub in untrusted environments lead to major confidentiality
concerns stemming from the content-centric nature of the communications. This
survey classifies and analyzes different approaches to confidentiality
preservation for pub/sub, from applications of trust and access control models
to novel encryption techniques. It provides an overview of the current
challenges posed by confidentiality concerns and points to future research
directions in this promising field