CHARLOTTE, N.C. � Dennis Abraham, president of Trusted Security Solutions, says the United States Patent and Trademarks Office has issued a "notice of allowance" for its Persistent Key Component (PKC) technology. A "notice of allowance" means all the claims on the patent application have been allowed and a formal patent will be issued.
According to Abraham, PKC allows a unique cryptographic key to be compliantly established by one person while avoiding the expense and complexities of using of Public Key cryptography. "PKC is a viable alternative to Public Key cryptography for ATM vendors and owners that want to reduce costs yet remain compliant with the applicable standards and network operating rules," he said.
The fundamental principle of PKC is that the ATM persistently holds one key component in secure storage, so that it survives power off and on cycles. Once the first (persistent) component is entered, perhaps at a staging area, it remains in the secure storage of the ATM until an authorized individual replaces it. The component entered by the second custodian is then combined with the persistent component to form the key.
Each time the ATM needs to be repaired or re-keyed, only the second component needs to be entered since the first component is being persistently held in the secure area. So long as the persistent component was properly managed and was random at the time of its entry, each subsequent combination of the persistent component and a new second component will result in a new random key.
PKC can be added to Trusted Security's A98 product, which will be exhibited at the upcoming Retail Delivery Show (booth 3226) in New Orleans, Nov. 19-20. (See related story Trusted Security to intro remote ATM key loading option at RDS)
