On a Concept of Scalable Security: PKI-based Model using Additional Cryptographic Modules

Public services called „e-anything” (e-government, e-banking, ecommerce, etc.) meet many different barriers, which reduce their efficient applicability. One of them is requirement of assurance of the information security when it is transmitted, transformed, and stored in the electronic service. It is possible to provide an appropriate level of security applying the present-day information technology. However, the level of the protection of information is often much higher than it is necessary to meet potential threats. Since the level of security strongly affects the performance of whole system, the excessive protection decreases the system’s reliability and availability and, as a result, its global security. In this paper we present a model of scalable security for digital information transmission systems (being usually the crucial part of e-service). In our model the basic element of the security is the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) enriched by specific cryptographic modules.