Policy-Based Security for M-Commerce Networks

Abstract

In this chapter we present an overview of a general policy-based security architecture for securing the confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity of enterprise m-commerce data. A policy-based architecture protects data based on content and sensitivity and highly surpasses the performance of bulk encryption protocols such as SSL and TLS by utilizing a customizable, policy-driven approach. This approach makes use of the structure of enterprise data objects (Web pages, relational database entities, directory hierarchies, log files, etc…) to provide flexible, multi-level, and fine-grained encryption and hashing methodologies. This makes policy-based security protocols a very efficient choice for operation in wireless m-commerce environments characterized by low-bandwidth networks and supporting limited-resource devices with low memory, battery, and processing power.