A wildcard searchable encryption method enables wildcard search of encrypted text in a cloud-stored encrypted document. In some embodiments, the wildcard searchable encryption method is implemented in a network intermediary, such as a proxy server. The network intermediary encrypts documents on behalf of a user or an enterprise destined to be stored on a cloud service provider. The wildcard searchable encryption method performs keyword pre-processing of the document to be encrypted to generate a set of keyword-wildcard combinations in plaintext for some or all of the keywords in the document. The processed document is encrypted using an exact match searchable encryption algorithm. As a result of the encryption process, a search index is generated to include the keyword-wildcard combinations. As thus configured, the wildcard searchable encryption method enables wildcard search of the encrypted text, such as searches for prefixes or suffixes of the keywords.