Credential Vault for Breach Notification and Remediation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Merchants and consumers are at risk of data breaches, which can lead to identity theft, as existing security measures fail to effectively notify and protect users when their personal data is compromised by merchants experiencing breaches.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that registers users, retrieves their activity data from various online accounts, analyzes merchant connections, monitors for data breaches, and sends notifications to users, with the option to perform remedial actions such as deleting personal information or revoking access to financial accounts to protect against identity theft.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users provide credentials to access their online accounts for monitoring, then the system can detect data breaches and notify users, but users face increased risk of credential exposure and additional security vulnerabilities
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces credential vaults as intermediary components that store user credentials securely and provide controlled access to the monitoring system. The credential vault acts as a mediator between the user's actual credentials and the monitoring service, allowing the system to access credentials for breach detection while maintaining security through encryption and access control mechanisms. This resolves the contradiction by enabling reliable breach detection without directly exposing credentials to the monitoring system.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the system monitors multiple merchants for data breaches, then user protection coverage increases, but system complexity and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements pre-computed user-merchant mapping relationships that are established before breach detection is needed. The system proactively builds and maintains databases linking users to merchants they have interacted with, so when a breach occurs at any monitored merchant, the system can quickly identify affected users without performing complex real-time analysis. This preliminary action enables broad merchant coverage while keeping the real-time system simple and efficient.
3Reliability
If the system performs remedial actions such as revoking financial account access, then user protection from identity theft improves, but user convenience and access to their own accounts may be affected
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements remedial actions that preemptively counteract potential identity theft by revoking merchant access to user financial accounts before thieves can exploit breached credentials. The system automatically detects breaches and immediately performs counter-actions such as credential rotation or access revocation. This preliminary anti-action protects users from future threats while maintaining their ability to access their own accounts through alternative authenticated sessions, thus resolving the contradiction between protection and convenience.
Data Source
AI summary
In one aspect, the present disclosure relates to a method for improved security in a networked computing environment, the method comprising: receiving, from a user device, a registration request comprising a user identifier for a user; receiving, from the user device, user credentials to access one or more online accounts associated with the user; accessing the one or more online accounts to retrieve user activity data for the user; analyzing the retrieved user activity data to determine one or more merchants associated with the user; storing, in a database coupled to a server device, a mapping between the user and the one or more merchants; receiving, from a monitoring service, an indication that a first merchant of the one or more merchants has experienced a data breach; and sending a notification to the user in response to determining that the first merchant has experienced a data breach.