Offline Encryption Key Distribution for Payment Processor Outages
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional payment processors experience service interruptions due to technical issues or network connectivity problems, leading to periods of downtime where encryption keys are unavailable, preventing online merchants from accepting payments and resulting in lost sales or customer frustration.
Innovation Solution
A system that enables offline distribution of encryption keys using a payment processor, allowing transactions to proceed even when the server is offline by generating and using a Single-use Token to represent payment information securely, ensuring that sensitive data is never exposed to the merchant's servers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the payment processor operates online with centralized key management, then security and key distribution control are improved, but service availability and transaction continuity deteriorate during server outages
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the encryption key management into two parts: a public key that is distributed to merchants and can be used offline, and a private key that remains centralized on the payment processor server. This segmentation allows transactions to proceed offline using the public key while maintaining centralized control over the private key for online operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary distribution of public encryption keys to merchants before offline operations are needed. These pre-distributed public keys enable merchants to encrypt payment data locally without real-time server connection, allowing transaction processing to continue during server outages.
2Productivity
If encryption keys are distributed offline to merchants, then transaction continuity during outages is improved, but key security and distribution control may deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The encryption key is segmented into public and private components. The public key is safely distributed offline to merchants for encryption operations, while the private key remains securely centralized on the server for decryption and sensitive operations. This mathematical segmentation ensures that distributed keys cannot compromise overall system security.
Solution Approach 2:
The public key acts as an intermediary that enables secure offline encryption without exposing the private key. Merchants use the public key as a mediator to encrypt payment data locally, ensuring that sensitive cryptographic material never leaves the secure server environment while still enabling offline transaction processing.
3Reliability
If the payment processor maintains centralized control over encryption keys, then security is improved, but service interruption impact increases when the server is offline
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments key functionality into offline-capable public key operations and online-required private key operations. This segmentation allows the majority of transaction processing to continue offline using pre-distributed public keys, minimizing downtime while maintaining security through centralized private key control.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary distribution of public keys and prepares offline encryption capabilities before server outages occur. This advance preparation ensures that merchants can immediately continue processing transactions during outages without security compromises, reducing both downtime and security risk.
Data Source
AI summary
The subject technology enables encryption key distribution when a processor is in offline mode. When offline, key distribution servers can distribute private/public key pairs in place of the processor. The servers can distribute a public key to a user device for encryption of data. The encrypted data can be provided to the processor, which can return a token in response to provide to the first server.