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Abstract

Secure transmission of data is provided between a plurality of computer systems over a public communication system, such as the Internet. Secure transmission of data is provided from a customer computer system to a merchant computer system, and for the further secure transmission of payment information from the merchant computer system to a payment gateway computer system. The payment gateway system receives encrypted payment requests from merchants, as HTTP POST messages via the Internet. The gateway then unwraps and decrypts the requests, authenticates digital signatures of the requests based on certificates, supports transaction types and card types as required by a financial institution, and accepts concurrent VPOS transactions from each of the merchant servers. Then, the gateway converts transaction data to host-specific formats and forwards the mapped requests to the host processor using the existing financial network. The gateway architecture includes three distinct sections to enhance distribution of the functions. The upper API consists of concise functions which are available via a call out interface to custom modules. The lower API allows the gateway and the custom modules to call in to reusable functions which facilitate isolation from possible future fluctuations in structural definitions of SET data elements. The system configuration custom parameters include the more static information elements required for such things as the network address of the host or its proxy equipment, timeout values, expected length of certain messages and other system configuration information. These parameters are specified as name-value pairs in the gateway system initialization file.

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