Trust Broker for B2B Secure Messaging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional business-to-business secure mail systems require cumbersome key distributions and explicit configurations for each organization, leading to inefficient scalability as companies need to manage separate security mechanisms for hundreds of organizations.
Innovation Solution
Organizations federate with a trust broker once to request tokens for decrypting messages protected by other federated organizations, using a trust broker to manage encryption and decryption processes, allowing for secure communication without individual key configurations for each partner.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional key distribution and explicit configurations are used for each organization, then secure communication is achieved, but device complexity and management overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trust broker as an intermediary component that mediates between organizations seeking secure communication. The trust broker generates and manages encryption keys, creating encrypted communication channels without requiring direct key exchange between participating organizations. This intermediary approach maintains security while eliminating the complexity of manual key distribution and configuration management for each organization pair.
2Reliability
If separate security mechanisms are set up for each organization, then secure communication is established, but scalability deteriorates as the number of organizations increases
Solution Approach 1:
The trust broker is designed as a universal system that serves multiple organizations simultaneously. A single trust broker instance can generate and manage encryption keys for numerous organization pairs, providing secure communication capabilities across the entire network rather than requiring dedicated security mechanisms for each individual organization pair. This universal approach enables linear scaling rather than exponential growth in complexity.
3Reliability
If individual key pairs are configured for each organization pair, then secure messaging is achieved, but time and resources required for key management increase
Solution Approach 1:
The trust broker performs preliminary key generation and distribution actions before actual communication occurs. When organizations register with the trust broker, encryption key pairs are generated in advance and stored securely. When communication is needed, the pre-generated keys are quickly retrieved and used, eliminating the time-consuming process of real-time key exchange and configuration that would otherwise be required for each messaging pair.
Data Source
AI summary
Business to business secure mail may be provided. Consistent with embodiments of the invention, a protected message may be received. The recipient may request a token from a trust broker, submit the token to an authorization server associated with the sender, receive a user license from the authorization server; and decrypt the protected message using the user license. The protected message may restrict actions that may be taken by the recipient, such as forwarding to other users.