Technology Overview

Information Encryption for Email, Files, Documents and Databases

Voltage solutions are built upon two innovations of cryptography - Identity-Based Encryption™ (IBE) and Format-Preserving Encryption™ (FPE). These innovations open up new ways to securely communicate, new ways to protect sensitive employee and customer data to prevent identity theft and enable many many different ways of encrypting information.

Identity-Based Encryption

In 1984, Adi Shamir, one of the inventors of the well-known RSA public key system, proposed that using identity directly as a public key, rather than relying on certificates, might be the best approach for simplifying public key cryptography. For the next two decades, numerous attempts were made to provide an Identity-Based Encryption algorithm, but no practical solution was found.

In 2000, Dr. Dan Boneh and Dr. Matt Franklin achieved a mathematical breakthrough and invented the first practical Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) system. Their scheme uses bilinear mappings, known as Weil and Tate pairings, on elliptic curves to obtain an algorithm that can be used to turn a simple, well-recognized identity into a public/private key pair. From these powerful mathematics, comes an elegant mechanism to secure email, files, documents and databases – online and offline, without the need to pre-register recipients.

In 2008 NIST hosted a workshop to discuss the benefits and future of Identity-Based Encryption - click here to read the findings.

The IETF has issued the following three RFC’s:

1. RFC 5091, “Identity-Based Cryptography Standard (IBCS) #1: Supersingular Curve Implementations of the BF and BB1 Cryptosystems”, describes the mathematics underlying the Voltage Identity-Based Encryption™ (IBE) approach and how to implement Voltage's IBE cryptography.
2. RFC 5408, "Identity-Based Encryption Architecture and Supporting Data Structures," defines the components of a system that implements IBE and defines the protocols that the components use to operate securely.
3. RFC 5409, "Using the Boneh-Franklin and Boneh-Boyen Identity-Based Encryption Algorithms with the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS),"   describes how to use Voltage's IBE within the existing standards for email encryption.

Learn more about Identity-Based Encryption

Format-Preserving Encryption

The advent of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) has driven many organizations to look at methods for encrypting credit card numbers and other types of structured data in internal databases. While this may seem like a straightforward application of encryption algorithms, encrypted data typically has a different format from the plaintext, which necessitates changes to database schemas and re-working business applications so that they are aware of the new encrypted data format. Format-Preserving Encryption is an innovative approach to to encrypting structured data like credit card numbers without changing the format and whilst retaining the high level of security associated with standard block ciphers like AES.

Learn more about Format-Preserving Encryption

Voltage Security Patents
Voltage Security continues to innovate and patents relating to IBE and other Voltage innovations have now been issued. We are working closely with standards bodies such as the IETF and IEEE to explore making these technologies available to a broad range of ISV's through reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing.

Learn about Voltage Security patents that have issued