Transforming Distributed Software Security with Homomorphic Encryption and AI-Driven Threat Hunting

Distributed modern software platforms spanning microservices, serverless functions, and edge computing face unprecedented security threats from stealthy adversaries exploiting encrypted data flows and behavioural camouflage. Conventional defences require decryption for analysis, exposing sensitive information in untrusted cloud environments. This paper proposes an innovative framework integrating homomorphic encryption (HE) with automated threat hunting to enable privacy-preserving threat detection at scale. Using levelled BFV schemes from OpenFHE, we perform computations directly on ciphertexts for anomaly scoring and behavioural profiling, while our hunting engine employs graph neural networks and isolation forests to hypothesize and pursue attacker patterns across distributed logs without plaintext exposure.The architecture deploys as Kubernetes-native operators, processing 10,000 encrypted events per second with 92% detection accuracy on MITRE-emulated scenarios, outperforming traditional UEBA by 35% in F1 score and reducing analysis latency from hours to seconds. Evaluations on AWS EKS clusters demonstrate sub-200ms query times for homomorphic aggregations, with noise management via bootstrapping optimizations. Case studies in fintech pipelines reveal thwarted supply-chain compromises and insider data exfiltration’s. By revolutionizing secure computation in dynamic ecosystems, our solution bridges cryptography and AI-driven hunting, offering deployable resilience against evolving threats while complying with GDPR and zero-trust mandates. Future work extends to fully homomorphic deep learning for adaptive adversary modelling.