Patent Application
20160150403
The present disclosure relates in general to the field of telecommunications. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a system and method for transmitting a secure message over a signaling network.
Short message service (SMS) is a communication protocol for sending a message to a mobile device. An SMS system is inherently insecure as SMS messages are transmitted in a clear text format. The clear text format refers to a message or data that is immediately understandable to a human being without cryptographic protection. The SMS system delivers an SMS message to a mobile device through a chain of one or more intermediary systems, therefore the SMS message may be intercepted and read at any point along the chain. An intermediary system may have a store and forward function to store an SMS message for an indefinite period without an expectation of data protection or privacy laws. Furthermore, the SMS system is susceptible to identity spoofing so that an SMS message may be delivered to an unauthorized mobile device.
A system and method for transmitting a secure message over a signaling network is disclosed. According to one embodiment, a method includes providing a request for one or more attributes associated with a phone number for a recipient mobile device, generating a key based on the one or more attributes, receiving an encrypted message for a recipient mobile device, where the encrypted message is encrypted based on the key, requesting the one or more attributes from the recipient mobile device, receiving the one or more attributes from the recipient mobile device, regenerating the key based on the one or more attributes received from the recipient device, decrypting the encrypted message based on the regenerated key, and delivering the decrypted message to the recipient mobile device.
The above and other preferred features, including various novel details of implementation and combination of elements, will now be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying figures and pointed out in the claims. It will be understood that the particular systems and methods described herein are shown by way of illustration only and not as limitations. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, the principles and features described herein may be employed in various and numerous embodiments.
The accompanying figures, which are included as part of the present specification, illustrate the various embodiments of the present disclosed system and method and together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the preferred embodiments given below serve to explain and the teach the principles of the present disclosure.
It should be noted that the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale and elements of similar structures or functions are generally represented by like reference numerals for illustrative purposes throughout the figures. It also should be noted that the figures are only intended to facilitate the description of the various embodiments described herein. The figures do not describe every aspect of the teachings disclosed herein and do not limit the scope of the claims.
A system and method for transmitting a secure message over a signaling network is disclosed. According to one embodiment, a method includes providing a request for one or more attributes associated with a phone number for a recipient mobile device, generating a key based on the one or more attributes, receiving an encrypted message for a recipient mobile device, where the encrypted message is encrypted based on the key, requesting the one or more attributes from the recipient mobile device, receiving the one or more attributes from the recipient mobile device, regenerating the key based on the one or more attributes received from the recipient device, decrypting the encrypted message based on the regenerated key, and delivering the decrypted message to the recipient mobile device.
Each of the features and teachings disclosed herein can be utilized separately or in conjunction with other features and teachings to provide a system and method for transmitting a secure message over a signaling network. Representative examples utilizing many of these additional features and teachings, both separately and in combination, are described in further detail with reference to the attached figures. This detailed description is merely intended to teach a person of skill in the art further details for practicing preferred aspects of the present teachings and is not intended to limit the scope of the claims. Therefore, combinations of features disclosed above in the detailed description may not be necessary to practice the teachings in the broadest sense, and are instead taught merely to describe particularly representative examples of the present teachings.
In the description below, for purposes of explanation only, specific nomenclature is set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that these specific details are not required to practice the teachings of the present disclosure.
Some portions of the detailed descriptions herein are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.
It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the below discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
The present disclosure also relates to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type of disk, including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupled to a computer system bus.
The methods or algorithms presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems, computer servers, or personal computers may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the disclosure as described herein.
Moreover, the various features of the representative examples and the dependent claims may be combined in ways that are not specifically and explicitly enumerated in order to provide additional useful embodiments of the present teachings. It is also expressly noted that all value ranges or indications of groups of entities disclose every possible intermediate value or intermediate entity for the purpose of original disclosure, as well as for the purpose of restricting the claimed subject matter. It is also expressly noted that the dimensions and the shapes of the components shown in the figures are designed to help to understand how the present teachings are practiced, but not intended to limit the dimensions and the shapes shown in the examples.
According to one embodiment, the present system and method transmits a secure message from a message sending system to a recipient mobile device. The message sending system may include a host server system of an enterprise and any type of computing device. For example, the message sending system is a banking website that is supported by a host system of a bank for sending a secure message to a customer. The secure message may be transmitted as an encrypted message via store-and-forward message servers (e.g., SMS system) or a packet network (e.g., the Internet) to a delivery agent that connects to a recipient mobile device over a secure signaling network (e.g., a Signaling System No. 7 (SS7) network). The delivery agent may include a server and other computing systems. For example, the delivery agent is a cluster of servers or a virtual machine. The present system and method encrypts a message to secure the content of the message between a message sending system and a recipient mobile device. The present system and method prevents a clear text message from being delivered to an unauthorized mobile device.
The delivery agent 112 receives the encrypted message from the message sending system 111 and requests the device attribute and/or the service subscription attribute from the recipient mobile device 113 using the control plane of the recipient mobile device 113 (at 205). According to one embodiment, the delivery agent 112 requests a copy of the device attribute and/or the service subscription attribute that is similar and corresponds to the device attribute and/or the service subscription attribute that the delivery agent 112 requests from the recipient mobile device 113 (at 102) as described in
The delivery agent 112 decrypts the message based on the pre-defined function and the regenerated key (at 208). According to one embodiment, the delivery agent 112 decrypts the message based on the regenerated key, the nonce, and the pre-defined function. The delivery agent 112 engages the control plane network of the recipient mobile device 113 to transmit the decrypted message to the recipient mobile device 113 (at 209). The control plane of the recipient mobile device 113 sends a positive or negative acknowledgement to the delivery agent 112 (at 210). The control plane of the recipient mobile device 113 sends a positive or negative acknowledgement based on whether the decrypted message is transmitted to the recipient mobile device 113. The delivery agent 112 further transmits the positive or negative acknowledgement to the message sending system 111 (at 211). In one embodiment, the acknowledgement is delivered using a signaling protocol (e.g., SS7 mobile application part (MAP) protocol). In another embodiment, the acknowledgement is delivered over a data transport connection with the recipient mobile device 113.
According to one embodiment, the present messaging system allows an organization (e.g., a bank) to send an encrypted message to a recipient phone number of a mobile device. In one embodiment, the recipient phone number is a mobile station international subscriber directory number (MSISDN). The MSISDN is a number that uniquely identifies a subscribing mobile device in a mobile network (e.g., a global system for mobile communications (GSM) network and a universal mobile telecommunications (UMTS) network). The MSISDN refers to a registered telephone number to a subscriber identity module (SIM) card in a mobile device. The present messaging system ensures that the recipient mobile phone is an actual mobile device and not a messaging gateway. The delivery agent of the present messaging system generates a key that is used to encrypt a message for a mobile device with a MSISDN to ensure that the message is secure. The delivery agent of the present messaging system further decrypts the encrypted message and delivers the decrypted message to the mobile device.
According to one embodiment, the present messaging system allows the sending system to store a key and encrypt a message with the key. The delivery agent of the present messaging system dynamically regenerates the key for message delivery by requesting an attribute from the mobile device. The present messaging system transmits the encrypted message through an intermediate system and decrypts the encrypted message. The present messaging system further delivers the decrypted message to the mobile device via a private signaling network (e.g., an SS7 mobile application part (MAP) protocol) used by a mobile operator.
According to one embodiment, the present messaging system generates a key that is associated with a recipient phone number of a recipient mobile device and stores the key in the message sending system. The present messaging system uses the key to encrypt a message for the recipient phone number of the recipient mobile device.
According to one embodiment, the present messaging system allows the message sending system and/or a user to register the user's phone number. The present messaging system generates a key that is associated with the user's phone on his/her mobile device. The present messaging system encrypts a message destined for a recipient phone number of a mobile device with the key that is associated with the recipient phone number.
In one embodiment, a first user and a second user register a first mobile phone number and a second mobile phone number respectively with a message sending system. For example, the first user and the second user register their phone numbers with Sovereign Bank to receive updates regarding their bank account activity. The message sending system registers the first phone number and the second phone number with a delivery agent. The delivery agent generates a key (e.g., key A) that is associated with the first phone number, and another key (e.g., key B) that is associated with the second phone number. The present messaging system encrypts a message (e.g., an account activity message) to the first phone number using key A to ensure that the encrypted message is sent securely to the first user.
According to one embodiment, the delivery agent does not store a key that is associated with a recipient phone number. A message sending system does not send the key to either the delivery agent or the recipient mobile device during message transmission. When the delivery agent receives an encrypted message, the delivery agent generates a duplicate of the key that is associated with the recipient phone number, decrypts the encrypted message based on the duplicated key and delivers the decrypted message to the recipient mobile device.
According to one embodiment, the message sending system or the delivery agent provides a pre-defined code. The present messaging system allows the delivery agent and a particular message sending system to share a particular code. The present messaging system allows the message sending system to register a recipient phone number and authorize a key generation request based on the pre-defined code. The message sending system registers the recipient phone number with the present messaging system to ensure that a message for a mobile device with the recipient phone number is only delivered to the mobile device.
According to one embodiment, the present messaging system extracts an international mobile subscriber identifier (IMSI) of the registered phone number and generates a key based on the IMSI. The IMSI uniquely identifies a mobile station, a home wireless network, and a home country of the home wireless network on the SIM card inserted into a mobile phone. The present messaging system generates a key that is associated with the registered phone number based on the IMSI and an encryption algorithm (e.g., the SHA256 encryption algorithm). The present messaging system generates a key that is unique to the registered phone number.
According to one embodiment, an organization requests a key for a recipient mobile device from a delivery agent using a message sending system. The interface between the organization and the message sending system is created based on various requirements. In one embodiment, the interface between the message sending system and the delivery agent is based on a communication protocol (e.g., the short message peer-to-peer (SMPP) 3.4 protocol). The delivery agent requests an attribute from a recipient mobile device and generates a key associated with the recipient mobile device. The generated key is unique to the SIM card in the recipient mobile device and the organization requesting the key. If a key is requested by a different organization for the same mobile device, the delivery agent generates a different key. The delivery agent returns the key to the message sending system of the requesting organization. In one embodiment, the delivery agent does not store the key. If a replacement key is required, the organization requests a new key for the recipient phone number so that the delivery agent generates the replacement key.
According to one embodiment, request/response messages can be delivered by SOAP or other application transports without affecting the above algorithm.
According to one embodiment, non-repudiation can be used in sending and receiving messages using the MDA 302. Non-repudiation has two parts: 1) the receiver has proof that the sender has sent the message, and 2) the sender has proof that the recipient received the message. Such a protocol may also be used on communications initiated from both the Internet and mobile directions which may result in the four cases described below.
For messages sent from the Internet side to the mobile side:
In this exemplary case, the sender uses his own identity along with the key associated with the recipient to encrypt the message. Only the sender who previously requested the key from the MDA 302 using that identity has that unique key. The MDA 302 on behalf of the mobile user decrypts the message. If either the sender's identity or the key is incorrect, the message will not decrypt correctly and the MDA 302 will not deliver the message further. If the message decrypts correctly, then that proves to the MDA 302 that only the sender who has the key could have encrypted it. The encrypted message could further carry a code word known only to the sender and recipient in the message delivered over the SS7 link, so that the end-user also knows that the message came from the Internet-based business partner. Since the MDA 302 ensures proper delivery directly to the mobile user, that code word is not easily compromised.
In this case, the MDA 302 can communicate directly with the mobile device to deliver the message. This method requires the MDA 302 to verify the identity of the mobile device before sending the message. The method ensures such verification of identity by requesting parameters that belong only to that mobile and using those parameters to actually reach that mobile device. The SS7 signaling messages used are routed directly and not stored by intermediaries. The method also requires the mobile device to send an acknowledgement message confirming receipt of the message. That acknowledgement is sent back to the sending Internet device as confirmation.
For messages sent from the mobile side to the Internet side:
Similar to Example 2 above, the MDA 302 can receive messages from the mobile device directly over SS7. The MDA 302 can provide acknowledgement to the mobile device. However, if someone knows the mobile parameters, the algorithm and the Internet identity, such message can be compromised. In order to ensure that the message came from the correct mobile device, MDA 302 follows a particular method. This method uses call-backs to ensure that the communication is always initiated by the MDA 302 because the MDA 302 can ensure that a direct SS7 signaling path is established through a valid operator to the valid mobile handset. The mobile is limited to sending an alert to the MDA 302 indicating that it needs to take an action. The MDA establishes contact to the MDA 302 as described in Example 1. If the mobile responds to the call back, the MDA 302 can then proceed to alert the Internet user that the mobile wishes to engage. The MDA 302 can then use the target Internet recipient identity and parameters from the mobile device to encrypt the alert message. The Internet device is then able to decrypt the message using the key stored for that mobile device associated with its parameters. If the messages decrypts correctly, then the Internet device knows the alert was delivered by the MDA 302. The Internet device can then initiate a conversation with the mobile using the method as described in Example 1.
In this case, the message from the mobile to the Internet user may be acknowledged in the reverse direction. The Internet user can encrypt the acknowledgement message similar to Example 1 and this acknowledgement can be delivered securely as described before. Once the acknowledgement is received by the mobile user, the MDA 302 will know that the alert message was received correctly. It is then ready to respond to initiation of the new conversation by the internet sender (Example 1).
Therefore, in many cases the message initiation from mobile to Internet side is very limited, and all risky communications are initiated from the Internet side where the user has better control.
The message center 504 transmits the encrypted message to a delivery agent 505 (at 515). The delivery agent 505 sends a request to the recipient mobile device 506 to retrieve an attribute of the mobile device 506 before sending the encrypted message (at 516). If the recipient mobile device 506 is active and ready to receive a message, the delivery agent 505 retrieves an attribute of the recipient mobile device 506, for example, a SIM card attribute (at 517). The delivery agent 505 regenerates the key based on the retrieved attribute of the recipient mobile device 506. The processes 513-515 provide a network delivery path from the organization 501 to the delivery agent 505. Hence, the key does not have to be stored along the network delivery paths 513-515. This ensures that if a node in the message aggregator 503 or the message center 504 is compromised, the key is not compromised. According to one embodiment, the retrieved attribute is the IMSI of the recipient mobile device 506. If the IMSI has not changed (i.e., user of the recipient mobile device 506 has not moved to a different mobile operator), the delivery agent 505 decrypts the encrypted message based on the duplicated key and delivers the decrypted message to the recipient mobile device 506 over a mobile control signaling network (at 518). It is understood that the delivery agent 505 can deliver the decrypted message to the recipient mobile 506 using a telephone signaling protocol, without deviating from the scope of the present disclosure. For example, the delivery agent 505 delivers the decrypted message to the recipient mobile device 506 over a Signaling System No. 7 (SS7) network. According to one embodiment, the delivery agent 505 does not store the decrypted message after delivering the decrypted message. If the recipient mobile device 506 is not available for message delivery or if the message is not acknowledged by the mobile control signaling network, the delivery agent 505 retains the encrypted message in an encrypted state for future delivery. For example, the recipient mobile device 506 is turned off, or does not have network coverage. In another example, the mobile control signaling network does not save the message after a pre-defined time period. The mobile control signaling network provides an acknowledgement for the delivered message and sends the acknowledgment to the delivery agent 505.
A data storage device 605 such as a magnetic disk or optical disc and its corresponding drive may also be coupled to architecture 600 for storing information and instructions. Architecture 600 can also be coupled to a second I/O bus 606 via an I/O interface 607. A plurality of I/O devices may be coupled to I/O bus 606, including a display device 608, an input device (e.g., an alphanumeric input device 609 and/or a cursor control device 610).
The communication device 611 allows for access to other computers (e.g., servers or clients) via a network. The communication device 611 may include one or more modems, network interface cards, wireless network interfaces or other interface devices, such as those used for coupling to Ethernet, token ring, or other types of networks.
The above example embodiments have been described hereinabove to illustrate various embodiments of implementing a system and method for transmitting a secure message over a signaling network. Various modifications and departures from the disclosed example embodiments will occur to those having ordinary skill in the art. The subject matter that is intended to be within the scope of the disclosure is set forth in the following claims.
