Internet credit card security

• US 6,070,154 A
• Filed: 11/27/1998
• Issued: 05/30/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Activepoint Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Activepoint Incorporated
• Inventors: Avraham, Gila Ben, Shevchenko, Vadim, Tavor, Onn
• Primary Examiner(s): MacDonald, Allen R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kanof, Pedro R.
• Application Number:
  US09/200,719
• Time in Patent Office: 550 Days
• Field of Search: 705/55, 705/1, 705/39, 705/44, 380/54
• US Class Current: 705/55
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/606 by securing the transmission between two devices or processes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/24 Credit schemes, i.e. "pay after"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/385 using an alias or single-use codes
• 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 20/425 using two different networks, one for transaction and one for security confirmation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/102 applying security measure for e-commerce data processing systems or methods, specially adapted for e-commerce G06Q30/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload

Abstract

A method for transmitting credit card numbers in a secure manner through an electronic medium such as the Internet. Credit card numbers typically consist of a string of 10-20 digits, with the exact number of digits depending upon the provider of the credit card. The security is provided by transmitting the credit card number in a plurality of different transmissions, each transmission containing at least one digit of the credit card number, but fewer than all of the digits of the credit card number. Preferably, the user selects the number of digits from the credit card number to send with each transmission. Thus, the entire credit card number can only be determined by receiving all of the transmissions from the user, thereby significantly increasing the difficulty of intercepting the credit card number.

Claims

1. A method for securely transmitting a credit card number of a user from a credit card charge GUI (graphical user interface) to a vendor through an electronic medium, the credit card number comprising a plurality of digits, the steps of the method being performed by a data processor, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) entering at least one digit of the credit card number to the credit card charge GUI by the user to form at least one entered digit;

(b) sending said at least one entered digit of the credit card number to the vendor through the electronic medium from the credit card charge GUI to form at least one sent digit;

(c) receiving said at least one sent digit of the credit card number by the vendor;

(d) repeating steps (a) to (c) until substantially all digits of the credit card number have been received by the vendor to form a plurality of received digits, such that steps (a) to (c) are performed at least twice; and

(e) ordering the plurality of received digits to form the credit card number.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the credit card charge GUI is a Web browser and the electronic medium is an Internet.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

(i) entering a type of credit card into the credit card charge GUI by the user; and

(ii) determining a number of digits for being entered by the user at step (a) according to said type of credit card;

wherein steps (i) and (ii) are performed substantially before step (a) is performed.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein step (i) further comprises the step of:

(1) selecting an option for determining said number of digits for being entered by the user.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said option is one of a fixed number of options for determining said number of digits for being entered by the user.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein step (ii) is performed by the user when the user performs step (a), such that the user separately determines said number of digits for being entered at step (a).

7. The method of claim 1, wherein step (a) further comprises the step of:

(i) examining said at least one digit by said credit card charge GUI, such that if said at least one digit is not a numerical character, said credit card charge GUI rejects said at least one digit.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein step (a) further comprises the step of:

(ii) rejecting substantially all entered digits by said credit card charge GUI if said credit card charge GUI rejects said at least one digit.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

(f) notifying the user after substantially all digits of the credit card number have been received.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

(f) encrypting the credit card number according to a key to form an encrypted credit card number.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein step (f) further comprises the steps of:

(i) dividing the credit card number into a plurality of credit card number portions;

(ii) dividing said key into a plurality of key portions;

(iii) performing a mathematical operation with each of said plurality of credit card number portions and each of said plurality of key portions to encode each of said plurality of credit card number portions; and

(iv) repeating step (iii) until substantially all of said plurality of credit card number portions have been encoded.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein step (iii) further comprises the steps of:

(1) setting a flag for each of said plurality of credit card number portions, said flag including a value selected from the group consisting of overflow, no overflow and underflow, said value being determined as overflow if an overflow occurred during said mathematical operation, said value being determined as underflow if an overflow occurred during said mathematical operation and said value being determined as no overflow if said underflow and said overflow did not occur during said mathematical operation;

(2) if said overflow occurred, adding a plurality of extra digits to another part of said flag; and

(3) if said underflow occurred, adding a plurality of removed digits to another part of said flag.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the step of:

(v) combining said encoded portions of the credit card number into a single string.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of:

(g) decrypted said encrypted credit card number according to said key.