Identity Service for Secure Inter-Server Communications
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing inter-server communications within enterprises lack authentication, relying on assumptions that are not truly secure, and modifying legacy applications to achieve authentication is costly and not deemed beneficial.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an identity-based monitoring approach that intercepts and authenticates communications between servers using an identity service, which assigns unique identities to communications and enforces policies, ensuring secure and validated transactions without modifying legacy applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If legacy applications are modified to implement authentication for inter-server communications, then security is improved, but cost and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an identity service as an intermediary component that mediates authentication between servers and legacy applications. The identity service intercepts communications, performs authentication, and returns results without requiring modifications to the legacy applications themselves. This resolves the contradiction by providing security (improved reliability) through the intermediary identity service while avoiding the cost and complexity of modifying legacy systems.
2Reliability
If authentication is implemented for all inter-server communications, then security is improved, but processing time and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The identity service performs authentication in advance by establishing identity contexts and credentials before actual communication occurs. Once authenticated, the identity information is cached and reused for subsequent communications between the same servers, eliminating the need for repeated authentication handshakes. This resolves the contradiction by providing comprehensive security while minimizing processing time through pre-authentication and credential caching.
3Ease of operation
If identity-based monitoring is implemented without modifying legacy processes, then ease of operation is improved, but authentication coverage may be incomplete
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements authentication in a different dimension by operating at the network/kernel layer rather than requiring application-layer modifications. The identity service hooks into the operating system's network stack to intercept and authenticate communications transparently. This resolves the contradiction by providing comprehensive authentication coverage through OS-level integration while maintaining ease of operation since legacy applications require no modification.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for network process identity enablement are provided. Inter-server communications within a network are intercepted so that unique identity-based information is gathered and recorded before a sending process is permitted to release a communication over the network to a receiving process. Moreover, the receiving process cannot process the communication being sent until identifying information is gathered again and independently validated against the prior recorded information.