Trusted Event Factory for Audit Record Integrity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current data processing systems face challenges in ensuring the integrity and authenticity of audit event records, particularly in environments where multiple applications share a common infrastructure, leading to concerns about unauthorized transactions, tampering, and accountability, with existing solutions like encryption being cumbersome and inefficient.
Innovation Solution
The method involves registering callback functions and event factory implementations within the data processing system's infrastructure, using unique identifiers to validate the authenticity of events, ensuring that only trusted sources can generate and authenticate event records, and employing a cache to manage event identifiers for secure event validation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If encryption and digital signatures are used to assure event record integrity, then security and authenticity are improved, but system complexity and operational overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trusted event factory as an intermediary component that generates events with embedded authentication data. This mediator handles the cryptographic operations centrally, eliminating the need for each application to manage its own keys and signatures, thus reducing key management complexity while maintaining security.
Solution Approach 2:
The event factory serves multiple applications simultaneously, providing a universal authentication mechanism. Instead of each application having separate encryption and signature capabilities, the shared event factory provides these functions for all applications, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining individual application security.
2Reliability
If each application is given its own cryptographic keys to ensure isolation, then security is improved, but key management scalability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments authentication into two parts: shared infrastructure (event factory) and application-specific identification (event data). Each application maintains isolation through its unique event identification rather than separate cryptographic keys, achieving both security isolation and scalable key management.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges key management functions into a centralized event factory that serves all applications. This consolidation eliminates the need for distributed key management across multiple applications, improving scalability while maintaining security through the factory's controlled authentication mechanism.
3Reliability
If audit records are implemented to track business transactions, then accountability is improved, but susceptibility to unauthorized transactions and tampering increases without proper security
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary authentication by embedding verification data in events at the point of creation within the trusted event factory. This pre-authentication prevents unauthorized transactions and tampering before they can occur, while the audit trail maintains accountability. The security is built into the event creation process itself rather than added later.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for assuring event record integrity including registering at least one callback function, the callback function being associated with a first callback function identifier, receiving an event having a second callback function identifier, identifying the callback function based on matching the second callback function identifier to the first callback function identifier, and calling the identified registered callback function to validate authenticity of the event.