BRPI0708201A2 - method for processing transactions electronically - Google Patents

Abstract

METHOD FOR PROCESSING TRANSACTIONS ELECTRONICALLY. Systems and methods for the secure processing of electronic transactions are disclosed. According to an exemplary modality, a system and method for the secure processing of electronic transactions comprises: receiving, through a POS terminal, information for a financial transaction card; receive, through the POS terminal, information for the financial transaction; encrypt, through the POS terminal, the financial card information and the financial transaction information in a first decrypted message; transmit the first decrypted message to a regional chassis; encrypt, through the regional chassis, the first decrypted message in a second decrypted message; transmit the second decrypted message to a central chassis; decrypting, through the central chassis, the second decrypted message in an unencrypted message; and transmitting the decrypted message to a host processor for authorization.

Description

"METHOD FOR PROCESSING ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS"

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to electronic transaction systems, and in particular to secure electronic transaction systems that are protected against attack and data interception by third parties.

Knowledge of the Invention

Fraud sophistication is increasing rapidly, scaling from a single collection point to the concentration site. Skills increase by using a small common device, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and readers, to intercept one card at a time in Malaysian news, where cheaters arrange to integrate a test instrument and a personal computer (PC). , on a data collection device. This was an important addition to the arsenal of tools used to attack the credit card system.

Industry regulations, such as those set by EMV standards, are helping to reduce the epidemic, yet they are beginning to drive fraud away from the traditional point of acquisition. Fraud has now been conducted at the "nerve center" of the advanced transactional framework and within the network itself.

Recent worldwide reports of "clandestine interception" fraud are a topic regarding the beginning and end of the payment industry. Line or cable interception involves the illegal installation of a monitor on market phone lines, and the systematic extraction of credit and debit card data from terminal data traffic.

In the current transactional transport architecture, point-of-sale (POS) transactions are delivered in the free space, making it possible for technically astute criminals to quickly intercept sensitive information by grabbing data in the middle of the transaction transport, a "middleman" attack. .

This new dimension of "cyber theft" has accelerated the need for sophisticated encryption capability for POS transaction traffic. The challenge is to create an encryption system that is secure for any commercially viable attack, but is simple enough to apply to existing networks with minimal operation or administrative overhead.

Brief Description of the Drawings

A more complete understanding of the present invention may be derived by referring to the detailed description and claims when considered in connection with the drawing of Figures, where like reference numerals refer to similar elements from beginning to end of Figures, and

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary secure electronic system according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary process for secure processing of an electronic transaction; and

FIG. 3 illustrates the construction of an electronically secure transaction message according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Invention

The present invention may be described herein in terms of various components and processing steps. It should be appreciated that such components and steps may be performed by any number of hardware and software components configured to perform specific functions. For example, the present invention may employ electronic control devices, visual display devices, input terminals and the like, which may perform a variety of functions under the control of one or more control systems, microprocessors or other control devices. In addition, the present invention may be practiced in any number of electronic transaction contexts, and exemplary embodiments relating a system and method for the secure processing of electronic transactions are merely a few of the exemplary applications for the invention. For example, the principles, features and methods discussed can be applied to any electronic transaction application.

For the sake of brevity, conventional electronic transaction processing, data networking, application development, and other functional aspects of systems (and components of the individual operating components of the systems) may not be described in detail here. Further, the connection lines shown in the various figures contained herein are intended to represent exemplary functional relationships and / or physical connections between the various elements. It should be noted that much alternative and / or additional functional relationships or physical connections may be present in a practical system.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a secure electronic transaction system provides the following features:

All or a portion of the transaction data passed between a POS terminal and an access network is decrypted such that it is safe from any commercially viable attack. However, the "strength" of the encryption system is commensurate with the processing and memory capabilities of the POS terminal range, including "legacy" models that may not contain "hardware acceleration" for encryption.

The "keys" used by the encryption system are under the control of the POS network operator or the terminal owners.

The system supports the concept of multiple keys, so that different acquirers, processor and / or terminal vendors may choose to have their own unique keys if they wish.

Several options are available for key loading at POS terminals, depending on the relative security or logistics needs of customers. This range of options comes from a highly secure scheme that employs "injection" of debit PIN keys for simple automatic field discharge from the terminal network.

The implementation of the secure electronic transaction system is directly ahead in the design so as to minimize the development effort that is required and to allow quick time to market.

As will be described, the present invention provides a secure electronic transaction system with a unique external and internal transport protection mechanism using encryption technology that can safely carry POS terminal data while avoiding any piecemeal data intervention. external.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a secure electronic transaction system will be described which allows all or a portion of the transaction data passed between a POS terminal and an access network to be decrypted such that it is safe from any attack. commercially viable. Being responsive to the existing terminal population, the secure electronic transaction system is backwards compatible with the processing and memory capabilities of a full range of POS Terminals - including legacy models that cannot count on hardware acceleration. cryptography.

As used here, "EDS" refers to the Encryption Definition section.

"KEK" refers to the Key Encryption Key, which is a key that is used to encrypt another key.

"KIN" refers to the Key Index Number. This is a number set by the acquirer for a terminal population. KIN allows each terminal population to have its own transaction key. "NAC" refers to the access network controller. According to one embodiment of the present invention, NAC functions are performed by running software on port processors as described below.

"PED" refers to a Personal Information Number (PIN) Encryption Device and may be a device or terminal with a secure PESi portion embedded.

FIG 1 illustrates a secure electronic transaction system 100 according to one embodiment of the present invention. System 100 comprises one or more POS terminals 110, cables 112 and 117, port processor 115, regional chassis 120, network 125, central chassis 130, and host 140.

POS Terminals 110 can be any conventional POS terminal that is used for electronic transactions. For example, POS terminals 110 may comprise T7 Plus terminals that are available from Hypercom Corporation.

POS terminals 110 can be connected via a conventional telephone network or Internet 111 to regional chassis 120. Cables 112e 117e port processor 115 can be used to connect regional chassis 120 to network 111 such that chassis 120 can communicate with POS terminals 110. The port processor 115 may comprise a processor such as the CID 63 processor available from Hypercom Corporation. The port processor may include an encryption module for encrypting data. Cable 117 may comprise a T63 cable available from Hypercom Corporation. POS terminals 110 may include software modules that provide information encryption.

The regional chassis 120 is connected to the central chassis 130 via network 125, such as the frame relay network or an Ethernet connection. Port processor 115 may be used by regional chassis 120 to communicate with central chassis 130 over network 125. The central chassis may also include a port processor (not shown) for communication and encryption functions. Central chassis 130 communicates with host 140. Host 140 provides electronic transaction authorization. Optionally, computer 150 may be used for remote configuration of central chassis 130 and as a network management system.

With reference to FIG. 2, system operation 100 will now be described. An electronic transaction is initiated at a POS terminal 110. A user passes a financial transaction card (i.e., credit card, debit card, smart card) (step 200) to the POS terminal 110 or otherwise enters information about a customer's financial transaction card. Other transaction information, such as the transaction amount, may also be entered at POS terminal 110. The POS terminal encrypts some or all of the financial card information and transaction information (step 210) and transmits the information to the regional chassis 120 (step 220) through port processor 115. Therefore, a fully decrypted message may be provided to form the POS device for the regional network device.

Regional chassis 120 receives the decrypted message from POS terminal 110 through port processor 115 (step 230). Regional chassis 120 again encrypts the message (step 240) and transmits the message (step 250) over Ethernet or frame relay 125 to the central chassis 130. The central chassis 130 undoes the message encryption (step 260) and the message The decrypted signal is transmitted (step 270) to host 140 for authorization. Once authorization is complete, the process itself reverts back to POS terminal 110.

The network encryption support of the present invention may be extended to the POS terminal by adding the Triple-DES hardware and software module to the effectively deposited incoming port processors.

On the terminal side, the software module integrates into end user software and can be deposited in conjunction with the next terminal software update.

The secure electronic transaction system creates an intelligent encryption method from the source device (POS, ATM) to a local transport environment secure access point. By encrypting this "last mile" leg / portion there is no need for lengthy and costly host modifications, creating reasonable secure (intruder-resistant) communication over the uncontrollable dial-line environment.

Although messages can be delivered decrypted to the host, concentrating the task of encrypting / decrypting over centralized peripheral devices, they could create bottlenecks considering that the actual work for these security boxes is based on a 4/6 byte PIN block, a complete messaging process, up to 200 bytes, that could crash the system.

Secure electronic transaction system ensures while isolating the central system from the task of encrypting / decrypting in a costly manner.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, secure electronic transaction system 100 supports the following features:

NACs are backward compatible with the existing terminal population.

System 100 contributes very little additional excess to transaction times.

All, part or nothing of a message from POS terminal 110 can be decrypted.

System 100 uses standard data encryption (DES) or Triple-DES algorithms. Keys are not exchanged. Purchasers or processors manage their own keys. Each acquirer or processor can have its own set of up to 4095 unique keys.

Supporting standards include DES CBC-64 encryption algorithms, Triple-DES CBC-64 dual key, and ISO 8583 message format.

According to one aspect of the present invention, each network may have its own set of keys, controlled through a network management system, and the key injection system for POS terminal 110. A key index number ( KJN) uniquely identifies each key within the network. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the KIN may be any value from 1 to 4095.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a DES key may be eight bytes in length and a dual Triple DES key may be 24 bytes in length using two eight byte keys. The two keys can be concatenated together to create the 24-byte using the equation Kl || K2 || Kl where 0 symbol || means concatenation.

A terminal PED is injected with a key and a KIN for each NII that supports encryption. The acquirer will determine the effective keys used. The acquirer uses its facilities and procedures to inject the keys into the terminal. System 100 does not require a particular process for how keys are injected into terminals, or how this information is retained within the terminal or PED.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, terminal 110 sends the KIN along with the encryption transaction. NAC looks for the KIN in its key table table to find the key and unencrypts the message before passing it to the host processor. The return message is always sent in free space to the terminal.

For the NAC to distinguish between decrypted and non-decrypted transactions, a hexadecimal TPDU ID 70 may be used to identify a secure electronic transaction in accordance with the present invention. Immediately following the TPDU is the Encryption Definition (EDS) section that defines the decrypted portion of the message. This is followed by the ISO 8583 transaction in which some or all of the data is decrypted. When a NAC receives an electronically secure transaction, it decrypts the message, removes the EDS, and changes the TPDU to a 60 hexadecimal pattern TPDU.

Referring to FIG. 3, the construction of a secure transaction message format is illustrated in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

When the POS terminal 110 connects to a acquirer with a nonzero KIN, it will encrypt the message using the associated key and send the KIN with the extended EDS and TPDU.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the CBC-64 DES (64-bit feedback cipher) DES mode and Triple DES algorithms are supported.

The terminal fills in the EDS with the following information:

The length of decrypted data

The initial deviation of decrypted data within the message

Logical checksum of data before encryption

The KIN for the acquirer.

The TPDU ID is set to 0 χ 70 and the message is sent to the NAC.

NAC has three possible answers:

Host Response - The host receives the transaction, processes it, and sends a response.

The transaction response is processed normally. Invalid Key - The computed logical checksum does not match the logical checksum in the EDS.

Network Error - Other network errors are treated the same as they are with other messages.

HVZ Record Recording. HVZ and POS applications send transaction session entry records when a transaction completes or fails. The EDS portion of a message is not sent in the session log.

Header format According to one embodiment of the present invention, TPDU message format is described below. The number of bits in each field is shown in the header as a secondary document.

TPDU EDS

<table> table see original document page 11 </column> </row> <table>

The Encryption Definition Section (EDS) follows that of TPDU. Each field is defined below:

<table> table see original document page 11 </column> </row> <table> <table> table see original document page 12 </column> </row> <table>

Logical Checksum Algorithm The following C code example calculates the logical checksum in the EDS. The routine assumes that the message contains a valid TPDU, EDS, and data in consecutive bytes in memory, with the message pointing to the beginning of the TPDU.

#define START 7 / * start word position * / #define length 10 / * word length position * / #define HEADERLEN 12 / * TPDU and EDS length * / unsigned char Calculate_ checksum (char * message not designated) {

unsigned int start; / * EDS start value * /

unsigned int length, / * EDS length value * /

unsigned char checksum; / * logical checksum

calculated * /

start = (message [START] «8) + message [START + 1];

length = (message [LENGTH] «8) + message [LENGTH + 1]; offset = start + HEADERLEN; checksum = 0; while (length--) {

Checksum + = message [offset ++],}

return checksum;

}

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have been described herein with regard to specific embodiments. However, the benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element (s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as critical, required, or essential characteristics or elements. any or all of the claims or the invention.

The scope of the present invention is therefore to be limited by none other than the appended claims, in which reference to a singular element is not intended to mean "one and only one" unless explicitly so placed, but more properly "one." or more". All functional and structural equivalents to elements of the exemplary embodiments described above which are by those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the present claims.

Claims (1)

Method for processing transactions electronically, characterized in that it comprises: a) receiving, through a POS terminal, information for a financial transaction card; b) receive, through a POS terminal, information for a financial transaction; c) encrypting, via a POS terminal, financial card information and financial transaction information in a first encrypted message; d) transmit the first encrypted message to a regional chassis; e) encrypt, through the regional chassis, the first encrypted message into a second encrypted message; f) transmitting the second encrypted message to a central chassis; g) decrypting, through the central chassis, the second encrypted message into a decrypted message; and h) transmitting the decrypted message to a host processor for authorization.