Method and system for securely managing application transactions using cryptographic techniques

A method and system for secure managing transactions between application devices over a network. The present invention provides a method and system for receiving data from an application device, such as computer workstation, ATM, credit card point-of-sale terminal, or application software, and transferring that data securely over a network to a recipient application device. The method and system provide secure cryptographic key and enterprise management of embedded, standalone and tightly coupled information assurance components.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to an enterprise management system for use in transporting application data between application devices over a network. More specifically, the present invention provides a method and system for securely managing an application device across a network.

2. Background of the Invention

Modern computer connectivity owes much to the increasing importance and cost of computers during the 1960s and 70s. Researchers questioned how two or more computers could be connected and their resources shared between users located at remote and different geographical points. Because the bandwidth needs of these dispersed users were intermittent—that is, short periods of high activity were interspersed between longer periods of little or no activity—researchers began developing the idea of a packet-switching methodology as an alternative to the relatively inefficient circuit-switching methodology of telephone circuits. During the 1970s, the foundation of modern networking was laid by the development of an architecture for connecting various networks together, embodied in the earliest forms of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The three key Internet protocols—TCP, Internet Protocol (IP), and User Datagram Protocol (UDP)—were conceived during this period.

The next two decades saw prolific growth in the number of networks, at least partly because of the Department of Defense's (DoD) and universities' efforts to interconnect their networks. Email and file transfer became more important to the communication of research and development among scholars. As interest in access to supercomputers became heightened, networks were developed to allow access to supercomputing centers.

The 1990s saw the most prolific growth in networking as the previous focus on scholarly and military use of networks turned instead to commercial use and the World Wide Web. Researchers made significant advances in routers and other routing technology. These developments have culminated in an increased presence of networks in all aspects of life, including such areas as financial transactions (e.g., automated teller machines and credit card verification systems), military and government applications (e.g., maintenance and control of power grids), and entertainment (e.g., video on demand).

The development of methods and systems for securely transferring data through these networks, however, has been largely out-paced by the development of the networks and the sophistication of the application devices themselves. This has left many application devices—the actual devices, whether software or hardware, that use the information delivered through the network—vulnerable to compromised network requests (integrity), counterfeited network requests (authenticity), or unauthorized network requests (authorization). In other words, information moving through a network to an application device could be tampered with while in transit, could be faked, or could be sent from a source not authorized to make such a request. Moreover, the transferred information might be replicated and then used elsewhere, raising confidentiality concerns. These risks are very real and occur on a daily basis, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly fraud losses.

Present methods for securely transferring data between application devices address these integrity, authenticity, authorization, and confidentiality components 1) do not adequately combine these elements to provide a secure, comprehensive network-centric capability for management of these components, and 2) are narrow in scope to an application-specific implementation. For example, encryption has long been used to keep information confidential during transport. Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication (PUB) 198 specifies an algorithm for applications requiring message authentication using a symmetric-based keyed message authentication code (HMAC). The HMAC is used to authenticate both the source of a message and its integrity, but does not address authorization or confidentiality, and does not provide controls provable to a third party.

Similarly, digital signatures, such as those defined in FIPS PUB 186, may be used to authenticate a message, but do not provide confidentiality or provable data integrity without some other element, such as a trusted time stamp (e.g., American National Standard X9.95-2005 Trusted Time Stamp, developed by Accredited Standards Committee X9, Inc.). By combing a trusted time stamp with a digital signature, thereby removing the time stamp from the control of the content provider, a digitally signed message cannot be back-dated without such back-dating being detected.

Current network management protocols, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), may provide some low level security and rudimentary network management capability, but are not sufficiently sophisticated to provide the necessary security management combined with flexible application device management capability. Thus, a need exists for a method of utilizing cryptographic elements—namely, encryption, authenticity, and data integrity—to yield true non-repudiation, meaning that these cryptographic elements are all provable to a third party. The prior art fails to provide this secure, comprehensive, network-centric capability for localized or remote management of Information Assurance Components that includes such things as application devices, cryptographic devices, application subsystems, cryptographic subsystems and other network appliances used by commercial industry and the government.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention addresses the deficiencies of the prior art by providing a method and system for securely managing application transactions using cryptographic techniques to provide data integrity, entity authentication, and data confidentiality. The present invention fulfills a need to securely manage these Information Assurance Components (IACs) within an information technology enterprise at the application level using a canonical message format and protocol that addresses such areas as Cryptographic Key Management, Configuration Management, Policy Management, Authority Management, Inventory Management and Audit Management.

The present invention uses a canonical transaction formation, protocol and processing model to manage enterprise devices in a secure fashion using standard cryptographic mechanisms to provide data integrity, entity authentication and data encryption. Moreover, the present invention can accommodate other message formats (e.g., Simple Network Management Protocol, or SNMP) by encapsulating the alien message in the canonical format and securing it via the standard cryptography mechanisms. The invention provides for utilizing these cryptographic elements to yield true non-repudiation, meaning that these are all provable to a third party

This same approach can aide those IACs that are network enabled and are therefore difficult to remotely manage, inventory, and rekey. In addition, the present invention provides a method of connecting legacy End Cryptographic Units to a management system, and can encode and translate its transaction formation using Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) or Extended Markup Language (XML).

The method and system of the present invention comprise the formatting of data into one or more trusted transactions. Each trusted transaction comprises a transaction and an Integrity object, which is more specifically a trusted time stamp. A transaction comprises a header, a data package logically following the header—which is the data ultimately delivered/received to/from an application device—and a trailer logically following the data package. The transaction data package is either unencrypted plaintext or encrypted ciphertext, but not both.

According to the preferred embodiment, the transaction header is composed of a transaction code, a transaction number, and a transaction route. The transaction trailer may be one or both of security objects defined as an Identity object and an Encryption object, although each of these is optional. The Identity object, which is optional, is a SignedData object as defined in either the X9.73 or X9.96 Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) standards, with detached data. The digital signature is on the plaintext transaction data package and generated by the sender. The Encryption object, which is also optional, is an EnvelopedData object as defined by one of X9.73 or X9.96 CMS with detached data. The encryption is on the plaintext transaction data package, which produces the ciphertext.

According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, the Integrity object is a Time Stamp Token (TST) as defined in American National Standard X9.95-2005 Trusted Time Stamp, which contains either a hash of the Transaction object or a digital signature of the Transaction object, thus providing content integrity linking to a provable point in time. The integrity object is mandatory and present on all transactions.

The selection of the transaction code and the value of the transaction number in the header, selection of the security methods for the identity and encryption objects in the trailer, and the selection of the method used for the trusted time stamp in the Integrity object are related to the application requirements; and are referred to herein as predetermined management parameters.

The method is applied and the system placed between an application device and a network, wherein the application device is a generic device composed of application software (e.g., a database management system) or hardware (e.g., a credit card point-of-sale terminal, an automated teller machine, a cell phone). In other words, the application device is a general term for any device that may be communicated with over a network. Similarly, the network may be any combination of elements for receiving information and routing that information through switches, routers, and the like to another application device, including a local area network (LAN), the Internet, a wireless network, or any combination of subnetworks.

When a foreign data package is received from an application device into the system of the present invention, the present invention generates a trusted transaction comprising that data package and presents the trusted transaction to the network for delivery to a recipient application device. The data package is received by a unit interface driver, which, if necessary, provides the data package to a unit translator process for translation into a canonical format, which is a format native to the enterprise management system. The data package is provided to a unit interface process, either from the unit interface driver (if no translation was necessary) or from the unit translator process (if translation was necessary), which unit interface process generates a trusted transaction comprising a header, the received data package, a trailer including an integrity object comprising a trusted time stamp and optionally one or both of an identity object and an encryption object. This trusted transaction is written to data storage for transfer to a network interface process, which routes the trusted transaction either directly to a network interface driver for presentation to the network or to the network interface driver through a network translator process for conversion into a network-compatible format.

Inbound trusted transactions are received from the network and the data package ultimately extracted therefrom for delivery to the recipient application device. An inbound trusted transaction is received from the network by the network interface driver, and either routed directly or through the network translator process for conversion into canonical format, depending on the format of the inbound trusted transaction. The network interface process validates the inbound trusted transaction, after which the data package thereof is provided to the unit interface driver or, if necessary, to the unit translator process for translation from a canonical format into a format compatible with the application device.

Another feature of the invention provides for administering, or “locking down,” an audit log for each generated trusted transaction, each validated trusted transaction, and any processing errors such as undelivered messages, alarm events, and late delivered requests or responses. As a trusted transaction is generated or validated, an audit post process generates an audit record, which is itself a trusted transaction wherein the data package of the audit record is the generated or validated trusted transaction. The generated audit record is then added to an audit log, which is also a trusted transaction. After the addition, the audit log is recreated as a new trusted transaction and recorded to storage. Moreover, the invention provides for responding to inbound trusted transactions that request a specific audit record of the audit log, or the audit log itself.

Another feature of the invention provides for generating an audit alarm as a trusted transaction for predetermined alarm events. Each generated audit alarm is captured as an audit record sent as a trusted transaction to a remote application device across the network according to predetermined audit management parameters. Audit alarm events are predetermined in audit management parameters based on the application and hardware characteristics of the unit process (e.g., an application processing error, a low battery condition, an ATM running out of cash, tamper detection). Such predetermined audit management parameters establish which application events generate an audit record and which application events initiate an audit alarm.

All audit alarms are captured as audit records. For example, an application subsystem that detects a low battery event can generate an audit record and generate an audit alarm. Further, an application subsystem can detect a low cash stack for an ATM, or a hardware security subsystem can detect a tamper event, both of which can generate an audit record and audit alarm; but, for example, the successfully completion of a file transfer may only generate an audit record and not an audit alarm.

According to still another feature of the present invention, an audit record is created for an undelivered trusted transaction, which is a trusted transaction provided to, but not received by, the network. In addition, for each undelivered trusted transaction, a data package can be sent to the application devices by the unit interface process that indicates the status of the undelivered trusted transaction. Similarly, an audit record is created for an undelivered data package, which is a data package provided to, but not received by, an application device.

Yet another feature of the invention includes a queue process for detecting late data packages and late trusted transactions and creating audit records thereof. The invention further provides a timed out process for creating audit records indicating the timed-out status of a trusted transaction queued by a queue process.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

FIG. 1depicts the placement of a preferred embodiment of a management system20for securely managing application transactions using cryptographic techniques. The management system20is logically interposed between an application device22and a network24to receive an inbound data package26from the application device22and deliver a trusted transaction28built around the received data package26for delivery to the network24. Similarly, the management system20receives inbound trusted transactions30from the network24, which originated from another management system20, and removes an outbound data package32according to the method of the present invention for delivery to the application device22.

As shown inFIG. 1, a management system20is interposed between each application device22and the network24, which may be any combination of elements for receiving information and routing that information through switches, routers, and the like to another application device22, including a local area network (LAN), the Internet, a wireless network, or any combination of subnetworks. Although only three application devices22and managements systems20are shown byFIG. 1, the number of application devices22and management systems20interconnected through the network is not limited.

The application device22to be managed may be any device for which secure management is desired, including without limitation ATMs, cell phones, credit card point-of-sale terminals, and computers. The management system20may exist as software on a computer readable medium or as a firmware engine, and may be physically contained with the application device22as a software or firmware engine, or may exist outside of the application device22.

Each of the system components described herein may comprise both software and the required hardware for implementing the software, or just hardware. For example, the network interface driver44and the unit interface driver34shown inFIG. 2necessarily contain hardware for interfacing to a network24and an application device22respectively (i.e., the physical layer of the OSI seven layer model). The routing of an inbound message to a translator or directly to the interface process could occur solely by hardware, or by a combination of software and hardware. These various combinations are known to persons having ordinary skill in the art, and the present invention should be construed in this light. Similarly, where the description of the elements includes logging to storage, the element includes permanent storage for containing such logging, and this will also be understood from the figures, which denote storage media with standardized representations thereof.

FIG. 2is a process flow diagram for each of a transaction network request, a transaction network response, a transaction device request, a transaction unit response, a timed out network request, a timed out device request, an undelivered device request, an undelivered network response, an undelivered network request, and an undelivered device response. The arrows showing the functional connecting may be either a physical layer (i.e., copper wires over which a coded signal representing a data package is sent, like a modem operating over a telephone line) or may be simply the passing of a data structure between different software modules. Each of these is known to those skilled in the art. To this end, the process flow diagram shows the functional connection between the system components, and should not be construed as requiring the physical transmission of information by one component to another (i.e., each of the components may be software modules that pass data structures between themselves), although neither should this be construed so as to preclude such physical transmission.

Application Device Request Message Flow

According to the preferred embodiment, when the application device22generates a device request, which is a request from the application device22to another application device22residing on the network instructing the remote device to perform some action (e.g., return information to the requesting application device22), a data package26containing the device request is provided to a unit interface driver34.

The unit interface driver34provides the data package to either a unit translator process36or a unit interface process38. The data package26is provided to the unit translator process36if the data package is received in an alien format, meaning that data package is not in a format canonical, or recognized by, the management system20(or more specifically the unit interface driver34). If the data package is received from the application device22in a canonical format, the unit translator process36may be bypassed by sending the data package26directly to the unit interface process38.

Once provided to the unit interface process38, a trusted transaction is generated according to the method of the present invention and written to data storage40. A network interface process42retrieves the generated trusted transaction from data storage40, and either routes the transaction directly to a network interface driver44that is responsible for, inter alia, physical delivery of the trusted transaction to a network24, or first through a network translator process46to convert the trusted transaction from the canonical format of the management system20to an alien format recognizable by the network24. In addition, a copy of the transaction is provided to the queue process48.

Network Request Transaction Flow

When the network24provides a network request to the management system20, which is a device request that has been transferred as a trusted transaction30from another application device22somewhere else on the network, the inbound trusted transaction is received from the network24by the network interface driver44. The network interface driver44provides the trusted transaction to either the network translator process46if the trusted transaction is in an alien, or non-canonical, format, or directly to the network interface process42, which validates the integrity, authenticity and authorization of the network request message according to the method of the present invention and discards any invalid network requests. Once validated, the trusted transaction is provided to data storage40for later retrieval by the unit interface process38.

Once provided to the unit interface process38from data storage40, the network request trusted transaction is converted to a unit request for delivery to the application device22, and a copy of the unit request provided to a queue process48for later use. If necessary, the unit request is routed through the unit translator process36for conversion of the unit request into an alien format compatible with the application device22.

Network Response Message Flow

A previously received network request received from the network24may prompt the local application device22to send a response back to the requesting entity—a different application device22somewhere else on the network24. The response is received by the management system20at the unit interface driver34and provided to the unit interface process38, either directly or after any necessary translation into the management system's20canonical format by the unit translator process36. The unit interface process38extracts the previously sent matching unit request from the queue process48and a trusted transaction generated in which the data package is both the application device response and the original request. This trusted transaction is then provided to data storage40. The network interface process42retrieves this transaction from data storage40, and either provides the trusted transaction to the network translator process46(after which the transaction is provided to the network interface driver44) or directly to the network interface driver44. The network interface driver44provides the trusted transaction to the network24.

Application Device Response Message Flow

Similarly, an application device response can be received through the network24by the network interface driver44, and then provided to the network interface process42directly or after being provided to the network translator process46. After validation of the trusted transaction—mean that the authenticity, integrity, and authorization components are validated—the trusted transaction comprising the response is provided to data storage40, where it is retrieved by the unit interface process38and provided to the unit interface driver34, either directly or after translation by the unit translator process36, as previously described.

Timed Out Requests

Although a response to an application device request or a network request (as previously described) may be expected, due to some fault external to the management system20, the response may not be received by the intended recipient. After the detection of a timed out message, which is determined by the queue process48, the queue process48provides the timed out unit request message to a time out process50for logging in permanent storage S. Thereafter the timed out message is provided to the network interface process42for distribution to the originator of the timed out request—either the application device22or the network24(meaning that the network is transporting the request from another application device22).

Undelivered Requests and Responses

Although a request may be received (as a data package from the application device22or as a trusted transaction from the network24), after migrating through the management system20, provision of the request to the intended recipient (again, either the application device22or the network24) may fail, for reasons that include hardware failure, connection problems, or problems internal to the recipient. In the event of attempted delivery of a unit request or unit response—that is, a request or response from the application device22sent with attempted delivery to the network24—the network interface driver44provides an undelivered or delivered notice to a network post process52. If the trusted transaction is undelivered, the network post process52creates an audit record of the trusted transaction in permanent storage R. The undelivered transaction is provided to the network interface process42, which updates data storage40, and returns an error response to the application device22through the management system20as previously described. If the attempted delivery was of a request, the network interface process42returns an error response to the application device22through the management system20as previously described; no error message is returned if the attempted but failed delivery was of a response.

Similarly, in the event of attempted delivery of a network request or network response—that is, a request or response from the network24sent with attempted delivery to the application device22—the unit interface driver34provides an undelivered or delivered notice to a unit post process54. If the data package is undelivered, the unit post process54creates an audit log in permanent storage T. The undelivered transaction is provided to the unit interface process38, which updates data storage40. If the attempted delivery was of a request, the unit interface process42returns an error response to the network24through the management system20as previously described; no error message is returned if the attempted but delivery was of a response.

Each trusted transaction migrating through the management system20is provided to an audit post process56, which generates an audit record, itself a trusted transaction with the migrating trusted transaction as the data package thereof. The generated audit record is then added to an audit log of the audit post process56, which audit log is also a trusted transaction. The audit log is recreated after the addition of the trusted transaction, and recorded to permanent storage of the audit post process56. In addition, the preferred embodiment of the management system20and method provides for responding to requests for specific audit records or the entire audit log from within the storage of the audit post process56.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the unit translator process36and network translator process46are omitted. This requires that the network24and application device22each accept and deliver trusted transactions and data packages, respectively, in a canonical format of the management system20.

As shown inFIG. 3, a trusted transaction58comprises a transaction60and an Integrity object, which is more specifically a trusted time stamp72generated from a time stamp token provided by a Time Stamp Authority. A transaction comprises a header62, a data package64—which is the data ultimately delivered/received to/from an application device22—and a trailer66. The transaction data package64is either unencrypted plaintext or encrypted ciphertext, but not both.

As shown inFIG. 4, according to the preferred embodiment, the transaction header62is composed of a transaction code74, a transaction number76, and a transaction route78. The transaction code74is a globally-unique object identifier (OID) that is infinitely expandable and infinitely extensible. A common OID arc establishes the first half of the OID that is unique to the invention. Further OID definitions can be added and registered as needed. The transaction number76is a relatively unique number used to match request and response messages. The transaction route78is a compound data structure that identifies the sender entity with a sender ID object92, each intermediary entity (i.e., each intermediate sender and receiver entity) with one ore more intermediary objects86, and the target receiver entity with a receiver ID object80. Each of these entities is further defined by a two-character international country code as defined in ISO3166, and a registered OID to uniquely identify the entity.

Referring again toFIG. 3, the transaction trailer66optionally includes one or both of an identity object70and an encryption object68. Although each of these is optional, the preferred embodiment of the invention uses both. According to the preferred embodiment, the Identity object70is a SignedData object as defined in either the X9.73 or X9.96 Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) standards (incorporated by reference herein), with detached data. The digital signature is on the plaintext transaction data package and generated by the sender. The Encryption object68is an EnvelopedData object as defined by one of X9.73 or X9.96 CMS, with detached data. The encryption is on the plaintext transaction data package, which produces the ciphertext.

According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, the Integrity object72is a Time Stamp Token (TST) as defined in American National Standard X9.95-2005 Trusted Time Stamp (incorporated by reference herein), which contains either a hash of the Transaction object60or a digital signature of the Transaction object60, thus providing content integrity linking to a provable point in time. The integrity object is mandatory and present on all trusted transactions58.

The selection of the transaction code74and the value of the transaction number76in the header62, selection of the security methods for the identity object70and encryption object68in the trailer66, and the selection of the method used for the trusted time stamp72in the Integrity object72are related to the application requirements, and are referred to herein as predetermined management parameters.

The present invention is described above in terms of a preferred illustrative embodiment in which a specifically described transaction management system20and method are described. Those skilled in the art will recognize that alternative constructions of such an apparatus, system, and method can be used in carrying out the present invention. Other aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention may be obtained from a study of this disclosure and the drawings, along with the appended claims.