(Last update on Jan. 01, 2013)

Lock-Keeper is a novel high security network solution that was designed by Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel and his team. It is licensed by Siemens and available on the market. Lock-Keeper is able to provide data transfer over physically separated connections. Based on the simple principle that "the ultimate method to secure a network is to disconnect it" Lock-Keeper can guarantee higher levels of security and entirely prevent specific intruder attacks by physically separating the communicating networks. In recent years, the patented Lock-Keeper system has been developed and improved to be more mature, dependable and applicable.

News

  • Feb. 2012: After Atos Orgin acquired Siemens IT Solutions and Services, the Lock-Keeper system is now being vendored by Atos.
  • Nov. 2010: Lock-Keeper was presented to the German President (Bundespräsident) Christian Wulff by his Antrittsbesuchs in Brandenburg.
  • More ... ... 
(Lock-Keeper Siemens, till 2012)
(Lock-Keeper Atos, from 2012)

Introduction

The threats originating from the Internet are ever-increasing and far from being "under control".  Modern security is designed to protect the vast range of business communication facilities from external as well as internal intruders, so-called "hackers".  To this effect, various defensive mechanisms have been developed to protect internal data and systems from unauthorized access. Here, we proposed a novel security solution named Lock-Keeper, which can provide data transfer by physically separated connections.

Based on the simple principle that "the ultimate method to secure a network is to disconnect it",  the Lock-Keeper can guarantee higher levels of security and entirely prevent specific intruder attacks by physically separating the communicating networks. In recent years, the patented Lock-Keeper system has been developed and improved to be more mature, dependable and applicable.

Research & Development

By means of the SingleGate Lock-Keeper system, a simple implementation of the "Physical Separation" idea, the possibility of direct attacks to a protected network can be eliminated entirely and data can be exchanged between two networks through a completely secure and reliable way. As an advanced implementation of this technology, the DualGate Lock-Keeper is proposed by including another new "GATE" unit. Along with this development, not only the Lock-Keeper performance on data transfer, especially the transmit speed, is improved significantly, but also some other new good characteristics appear simultaneously. All these changes make the Lock-Keeper technology more efficient, flexible and applicable. Moreover, we also propose a Lock-Keeper Cluster architecture, which is built up by the combination of two or more independent Lock-Keeper systems, to improve the performance on data exchange. Our current research and development work is focus on the following topics:

  • Deployment of Lock-Keeper in Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA).
  • Reconstruct Lock-Keeper using Concepts of Trusted Computing.
  • Lock-Keeper-based Online Police Station.
  • Secure Database Replication Module based on WS-Based Messaging Framework.
  • Lock-Keeper based IDS/IPS Solutions.
  • Securing VoIP Infrastructure and its Application using Lock-Keeper
  • Development of the Lock-Keeper Cluster System.
  • Performance measurement and comparison between the Lock-Keeper and other similar security solutions.
  • Authentication and access control based on the Lock-Keeper technology.
  • ... ...

Awards

  • Lock-Keeper won the 2007 German "IT Security Award" (in the "Kategorie Web/Internet Security").
  • Lock-Keeper got the Inventor's prize from the Investitions- und Strukturbank Rheinland-Pfalz (ISB) in 2002.

Patents

In recent years, the Lock-Keeper technology has gotten the right of patent, under the name of "Data Connection Between Two Processors and Process to Transmit Data Between Two Processors", from several contries or districts.

  • Hong Kong, of China, Nr. 01104595.0, from 04.07.2001
  • European Union, Nr. 01 106 701.4, from 16.03.2001
  • USA, Nr. PCT/EP99/05550, from 14.02.2001
  • China, Nr. 99809961.9, from 31.07.1999
  • Korea, Nr. 2.341.180, from 31.07.1999
  • Canada, Nr. PCT/EP99/05550, from 31.07.1999
  • Russia, Nr. PCT/EP99/05550, from 31.07.1999

Selected Publications

Selected Presentations

Team Organization

Partners

We are cooperated with following partners on R&D works with Lock-Keeper and its applications.

          

Contact us

Research group of Internet Technologies and Systems,
Hasso-Plattner-Institute, at the University of Potsdam,
D-14440, Potsdam, Germany
Phone: +49 331 5509-519
Fax: +49 331 5509-325
Room: H-1.13
Email: