Method for generating a certificate

• US 9,596,089 B2
• Filed: 06/10/2011
• Issued: 03/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bundesdruckerei GmbH (Government of Germany)
• Original Assignee: Bundesdruckerei GmbH (Government of Germany)
• Inventors: Entschew, Enrico, Wirth, Klaus-Dieter
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Luu
• Assistant Examiner(s): Baum, Ronald
• Application Number:
  US13/704,351
• Publication Number:
  US 20130318354A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,104 Days
• Field of Search: 713/175
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/645 using a third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2103 Challenge-response
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2153 Using hardware token as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/805 Lightweight hardware, e.g. radio-frequency identification [RFID] or sensor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3234 involving additional secure or trusted devices, e.g. TPM, smartcard, USB or software token network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using an additional device in a packet data network H04L63/0853
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for generating a certificate for signing electronic documents by means of an ID token (106), having the following steps: —sending (201) a transaction request for a user to carry out a transaction, —as a result of the sending of the transaction request, a check is carried out as to whether the certificate (519) is available and if this is not the case, carrying out the following steps: generating (206) an asymmetrical key pair consisting of a private key and a public key using an ID token, said ID token (106) being assigned to the user; storing (207) the generated asymmetrical key pair on the ID token, wherein at least the private key is stored in a protected memory region of the ID token; transmitting (208; 509) the generated public key (518) to a first computer system, and generating (209) the certificate (519) by means of the first computer system for the public key.

Claims

1. A method for generating a transaction-bound certificate in a system comprising a first computer system associated with an ID provider, a second computer system associated with a service provider and a third computer system associated with a user, wherein the first, second and third computer systems are at distinct physical locations and are coupled to one another via a network, the method comprising:

sending, by the third computer system to the second computer system, a transaction request for the user to carry out a transaction;

sending, by the second computer system to the third computer system, responsive to receiving the transaction request;

data to be signed and a signature request for signing the data to be signed,

wherein signing of the data to be signed is necessary to carry out the requested transaction and

wherein the signature request comprises at least one data value that is only produced specifically for the requested transaction by the second computer system once the transaction request has been received by the second computer system and

wherein a first data value of the at least one data value comprises a document number of an electronic document, an order number of the electronic document, an identifier of an operator of the second computer system that sends the signature request, an identifier of the second computer system that sends the signature request, or a data value derived therefrom, a data value associated with or derived from the data to be signed, or a data value derived from content of the electronic document;

checking by the third computer system, responsive to receiving the signature request whether a transaction-bound certificate is available that is suitable for the requested transaction and, if this is not the case, executing the following;

generating, by executing a program of instructions in a processor of an ID token, an asymmetric key pair consisting of a private key and a public key, wherein the ID token is associated with the user and wherein generation of the asymmetric key pair occurs exclusively external to the third computer system;

storing the generated asymmetric key pair on the ID token, wherein at least the private key is stored in a protected memory area of the ID token;

transmitting a certificate request from the ID token to the first computer system, the certificate request comprising the generated public key and at the least one data value of the signature request;

generating, by the first computer system, a transaction-bound certificate dependent upon the public key and the at least one data value; and

sending, by the first computer system to the third computer system, the transaction-bound certificate responsive to generating, by the first computer system, the transaction-bound certificate;

wherein the validity of the transaction-bound certificate is restricted to the requested transaction and is dependent upon the least one data value and wherein the generation of the transaction-bound certificate occurs exclusively external to the third computer system,

wherein checking, by the third computer system, whether an available transaction-bound certificate is suitable for the requested transaction comprises;

checking, at least from the first data value of the at least one data value, whether the available transaction-bound certificate is bound to the requested transaction; and

checking whether an asymmetric key pair affiliated with the available transaction-bound certificate is stored in the ID token.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

signing, by the ID token, the data to be signed with the private key; and

transmitting the signed data from the ID token to the third computer system.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, further comprising:

transmitting the public key from the ID token to the third computer system, wherein the public key is transmitted as a component of the transaction-bound certificate;

transmitting the signed data and the public key from the third computer system to the second computer system, wherein the public key is transmitted as a component of the transaction-bound certificate; and

checking, by the second computer system, the signature of the signed data.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user is authenticated to the ID token by inputting a first PIN and a second PIN, wherein the first PIN is associated with the user and the second PIN can only be input once the first PIN has been input successfully, wherein the second PIN is a signature PIN specified by the user and wherein a successful input of the signature PIN unlocks a signature function of the ID token.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

checking the presence of an already existing asymmetric key pair, together with an associated valid transaction-bound certificate, on the ID token by the first computer system,

wherein the asymmetric key pair and the transaction-bound certificate are only then produced if an existing asymmetric key pair with associated valid certificate is not already stored on the ID token.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first data value of the at least one data value comprises a value that is derived from a document number of an electronic document, an order number of the electronic document, an identifier of an operator of the second computer system, an identifier of the second computer system, or content of the electronic document.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first value of the at least one data value is associated with or derived from the data to be signed.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first data value of the at least one data value comprises:

a document number of an electronic document,

an order number of the electronic document;

an identifier of the operator of the second computer system, which sends the signature request;

or

an identifier of the second computer system, which sends the signature request.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one data value specifies the period of time during which the transaction-bound certificate is valid.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least the public key is transmitted to the first computer system via a protected connection with end-to-end encryption between the ID token and the first computer system.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, further comprising

authenticating the user to the ID token;

and

authenticating the first computer system to the ID token,

wherein, once the user and the first computer system have been successfully authenticated, the protected connection between the ID token and the first computer system is set up.

12. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one attribute is stored in the ID token, further comprising:

read access of the first computer system to the at least one attribute stored in the ID token to transmit the at least one attribute to the second computer system.

13. A system comprising:

a first computer system associated with an ID provider, the first computer system comprising;

a network interface to a network; and

a computer processor for executing program instructions, where the program instructions comprise;

first program instructions that, when executed by the processor, authenticate the first computer system to an ID token via the network interface and the network;

second program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, form a protected connection with end-to-end encryption between the ID token and the first computer system via the network interface and the network and receives a public key and at least one data value from the ID token, wherein the public key and a private key form an asymmetric key pair, and wherein the asymmetric key pair is associated with a user and wherein a first data value of the at least one data value comprises a document number of an electronic document, an order number of the electronic document, an identifier of the operator of a third computer system that sends a signature request, an identifier of the third computer system that sends the signature request, or a data value derived therefrom, a data value associated with or derived from the data to be signed, or a data value derived from content of the electronic document; and

third program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, generate a transaction-bound certificate for the public key, wherein the certificate is suitable for a transaction requested by a second computer system associated with the user, wherein the validity of the transaction-bound certificate is determined by the received first data value and restricted to the requested transaction and wherein the transaction-bound certificate is associated with the user and wherein the generated transaction-bound certificate is sent by the first computer system to the second computer system,

wherein the first and second computer systems are at distinct physical locations and are coupled to one another via a network.

14. The system as claimed in claim 13, further comprising:

the second computer system associated with the user comprising an interface for forming a connection with a corresponding interface of the ID token, where the first computer is operable to read, via the connection with ID token, at least one attribute stored in the ID.

15. The system as claimed in claim 13, where the program instructions further comprise:

fourth program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor in response to a request by one or more of the second computer system and the third computer system to block the certificate, blocks the certificate once it has been checked that the request originates from an authority that is associated with the certificate as the owner thereof.

16. The system as claimed in claim 13, where the program instructions further comprise:

fifth program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor in response to a request from the third computer system to check the validity of the certificate,

checks the validity of the certificate; and

sends the result of the check to the third computer system.

17. A computer program product, particularly a computer-readable, non-volatile, non-transitory storage medium with executable program instructions that, when executed on a computer processor of a user computer system, perform a method for generating a transaction-bound certificate, the method comprising:

sending a transaction request for a user of the user computer system to carry out a transaction from the user computer to a service provider computer system;

receiving, from the service provider computer system, data to be signed and a signature request for signing the data to be signed, wherein signing of the data to be signed is necessary to carry out the requested transaction and wherein the signature request comprises at least one data value that is only produced specifically for the requested transaction by the service provider computer system once the transaction request has been received by the service provider computer system and wherein a first data value of the at least one data value comprises a document number of an electronic document, an order number of the electronic document, an identifier of the operator of the service provider computer system that sends the signature request, an identifier of the service provider computer system that sends the signature request, or a data value derived therefrom, a data value associated with or derived from the data to be signed, or a data value derived from content of the electronic document;

responsive to sending the transaction request, checking whether a transaction-bound certificate is available that is suitable for the requested transaction and, if this is not the case, executing the following;

sending the at least one data value to an ID token to enable the ID token to generate an asymmetric key pair consisting of a private key and a public, wherein the ID token is associated with the user, wherein

the generated asymmetric key pair is stored on the ID token, and wherein at least the private key is stored in a protected memory area of the ID token;

transmitting the generated public key and the at least one data value to an ID provider computer system; and

the user computer system receiving the transaction bound certificate from the ID provider computer system, where the transaction-bound certificate is dependent upon the public key and the at least one data value,

signing the data to be signed, and

sending the signed data to be signed and the transaction-bound certificate to the service provider computer system,

wherein checking whether an available transaction-bound certificate is suitable for the requested transaction comprises;

checking, at least from the first data value of the at least one data value, whether the available transaction-bound certificate is bound to the requested transaction; and

checking whether an asymmetric key pair affiliated with the available transaction-bound certificate is stored in the ID token.