Specifications

FILE AUTHENTICATION

Introduction to File Authentication

MNI 37XX REFERENCE MANUAL 57

• Signer certificate: Certifies the right to sign and authenticate files for

terminals belonging to the sponsor.

A signer certificate is authenticated under the authority of a higher-level client

certificate (the sponsor certificate).

The required sponsor and signer certificates must either have been previously

downloaded and authenticated on the terminal, or they must be downloaded

together with the new signature files and target files for them to authenticate.

Signer Private Keys Are Issued to Secure the File Signing Process

Signer private keys are loaded onto a smart card. This smart card is securely

delivered to the business entity that the terminal sponsor has authorized to sign,

download, and authenticate applications to run on the sponsor’s terminal.

The VeriFone CA can also issue additional sets of sponsor and signer certificates,

and signer private keys to support multiple sponsors and multiple signers for a

specific platform.

To establish the logical security of applications to download to an Omni 37xx

terminal, the designated signer uses the signer private key issued them by the

VeriFone CA as a required input to the file signing tool, FILESIGN.EXE. Every

signature file contains information about the signer private key used to sign it.

When a signature file generated using a signer private key downloads to the

Omni 37xx terminal, if it is successfully authenticated depends on whether the

signer private key used to sign the target file matches the signer certificate stored

in the terminal’s certificate tree.

How File

Authentication

Works

File authentication consists of three basic processes:

1 Development: The file signing software tool FILESIGN.EXE creates a

signature file for each application file to authenticate.

2 Pre-deployment: An optimal certificate structure is determined, and the

necessary certificates and keys created.

3 Deployment: The development and pre-deployment processes, once

complete, are used in combination to prepare a terminal for deployment.

Development Process

In this process:

1 The application developer creates an application file.

2 The developer assigns a name to the application file.

NOTE

Only one sponsor certificate is permitted per terminal.