Universal Trust Engine for Continuous Network Authentication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional network security models, such as zero trust, are typically implemented on a per-site basis and do not provide a comprehensive strategy for secure access to corporate resources across diverse environments, failing to establish continuous trust beyond specific interactions.
Innovation Solution
A continuous universal trust (CUT) architecture that manages authentication and trust logic for all entities within a core network, independently authenticating each entity to the core network, ensuring trust is retained and universally applicable across all communications, regardless of source or destination, through a secure communication path.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If per-site zero trust security is implemented, then authentication for specific services is improved, but universal trust across diverse network environments deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal trust score that functions across multiple services, devices, and network environments. The trust score is calculated once by the trust engine and reused universally for authentication decisions across different services and resources, eliminating the need for separate per-site trust evaluations while maintaining security reliability.
2Reliability
If continuous trust evaluation is performed per interaction, then security posture monitoring is improved, but computational overhead and complexity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges continuous trust evaluation into a centralized trust engine that aggregates security posture information from multiple sources and maintains a single trust score per entity. This consolidation eliminates the need for separate evaluation systems for each interaction or service, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining continuous monitoring capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The trust engine performs preliminary trust evaluation and establishes a trust score before specific interactions occur. This pre-computed trust score is then reused for subsequent authentication decisions, eliminating the need to re-evaluate security posture for every single interaction while maintaining continuous monitoring through periodic updates.
3Measurement precision
If independent authentication is performed for each entity, then security control precision is improved, but authentication processing time deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary authentication and trust evaluation to establish a trust score for each entity before specific resource access requests. This pre-established trust score enables rapid authentication decisions for subsequent requests without repeating the full evaluation process, reducing processing time while maintaining precise control through the reusable trust score.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for continuous “universal” trust (CUT) leverages a core network that manages authentication set-up and continuous trust logic for entities that use the network. During communications through the network, and regardless of source or destination, CUT logic is applied to each entity independently, and without requiring authentication to be done directly between entities that desire to communicate with one another. In a typical implementation involving a user and a service, CUT authenticates both user and service independently. To facilitate both initial and continuous authentication, a CUT engine applies authentication factors to an entity, independently of factors that may be applied by the CUT entity to any other entity that uses the network. In this solution, the CUT engine continues to authenticate and maintain trust between each entity and the core network, irrespective of the underlying communication to be carried out or occurring between the entities themselves.