METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TOKENIZATION OF SENSITIVE SETS OF CHARACTERS

• US 20140032417A1
• Filed: 10/01/2013
• Published: 01/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Protegrity USA, Inc. (Xcelera Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Protegrity USA, Inc. (Xcelera Inc.)
• Inventors: Mattsson, Ulf
• Application Number:
  US14/043,740
• Publication Number:
  US 20140032417A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/24 Credit schemes, i.e. "pay after"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/341 Active cards, i.e. cards including their own processing means, e.g. including an IC or chip
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/084 Additional components relating to data transfer and storing, e.g. error detection, self-diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1008 Active credit-cards provided with means to personalise their use, e.g. with PIN-introduction/comparison system
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1016 Devices or methods for securing the PIN and other transaction-data, e.g. by encryption arrangements for secret communication, see H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/122 Online card verification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0891 Revocation or update of secret information, e.g. encryption key update or rekeying

Abstract

A method and system for secure handling of sensitive sets of characters in a distributed hierarchical system are disclosed, comprising at least one local server on a lower hierarchic level and at least one central server at a higher hierarchic level. The method comprises the steps: receiving a sensitive set of characters in said local server; replacing a part of said sensitive set of characters with a token to form a tokenized set of characters, said token belonging to a subset of possible tokens assigned to the local server by the central server; transferring at least one of said sensitive set of characters and said tokenized set of characters to the central server; and canceling said sensitive set of characters from said local server within a limited time from said transferring, while maintaining said tokenized set of characters in a local database connected to said local server.

Claims

1. A method for tokenizing sensitive data in a distributed system comprising a local server and a central server, the method comprising:

receiving, at the local server from the central server, a token table mapping each of a plurality of character strings to a different token;

receiving, at the local server, sensitive data comprising a string of characters;

querying, by the local server, the token table with a subset of the string of characters to identify a token mapped to the subset of the string of characters;

replacing, by the local server, the subset of the string of characters with the identified token to create tokenized data; and

providing the tokenized data to the central server for storage.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensitive data comprises one or more of:

identification information or financial information.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the sensitive data includes at least one of:

a credit card number, a bank account number, a social security number, a driver license number, and a birth certificate number.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

deleting the sensitive data from the local server in response to providing the tokenized data to the central server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the token table includes a character string mapped to a different token for each possible character combination.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the central server provides a different token table to each of a plurality of local servers.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the local server from the central server, a second token table, the received second token table mapping at least one of the plurality of character strings to a different token than the received token table; and

replacing, by the local server, the received token table with the received second token table.

8. A system for tokenizing sensitive data, the system comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing executable program code comprising code for;

receiving, from a central server, a token table mapping each of a plurality of character strings to a different token;

receiving sensitive data comprising a string of characters;

querying the token table with a subset of the string of characters to identify a token mapped to the subset of the string of characters;

replacing the subset of the string of characters with the identified token to create tokenized data; and

providing the tokenized data to the central server for storage; and

a processor for executing the program code.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the sensitive data comprises one or more of:

identification information or financial information.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the sensitive data includes at least one of:

a credit card number, a bank account number, a social security number, a driver license number, and a birth certificate number.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the executable program code further comprises code for:

deleting the sensitive data from the local server in response to providing the tokenized data to the central server.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the token table includes a character string mapped to a different token for each possible character combination.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the central server provides a different token table to each of a plurality of systems.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the executable program code further comprises code for:

receiving, from the central server, a second token table, the received second token table mapping at least one of the plurality of character strings to a different token than the received token table; and

replacing the received token table with the received second token table.

15. A method for tokenizing sensitive data in a distributed system comprising a plurality of local server and a central server, the method comprising:

providing, by the central server to each of the plurality of local servers, a token table mapping each of a plurality of character strings to a different token, each of the plurality of local servers configured to tokenize sensitive data using a token from the token server provided to the local server to form tokenized data;

receiving, by the central server, tokenized data from one or more of the local servers; and

storing, by the central server, received tokenized data.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein providing a token table to each of the plurality of local servers comprising providing a different token table to each local server.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

periodically replacing, by the central server, each token table provided to a local server with an updated token table.

18. A system for tokenizing sensitive data, the system comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing executable program code comprising code for;

providing, to each of a plurality of local servers, a token table mapping each of a plurality of character strings to a different token, each of the plurality of local servers configured to tokenize sensitive data using a token from the token server provided to the local server to form tokenized data;

receiving tokenized data from one or more of the local servers; and

storing received tokenized data; and

a processor for executing the program code.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein providing a token table to each of the plurality of local servers comprising providing a different token table to each local server.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the executable program code further comprises code for:

periodically replacing each token table provided to a local server with an updated token table.