【3-Way Database】Security Model of EXC

Before reading this article, what do you think is the safest existing security system in the world? On our last article we covered EAL (Evaluation Assurance Level), which is an international standard for security.

The higher the grade between 1 (lowest) to 7+ (highest), the higher the assurance level. Online banking conducted by major banks and financial institutions are certified with around EAL4. EAL6 and above is a grade level which the government uses to protect military classified information, and only a few systems are certified with EAL7.

What System Must Never Be Broken?

Although banks are rarely breached, even if they do it will not develop into a world-shaking problem. But what if the security to protect military classified information gets hacked? If the US Pentagon gets hacked, it can cause a real big incident on the entire world. Moreover, if the security system to launch nuclear missiles get hacked, the world will be destroyed.

In order to prevent this from happening, the United States has the world's highest security levels in systems surrounding nuclear weapons. It has received the certification of which is the highest level as an international standard

Comparing The Security System of EXC & Nuclear Weapons's 

EXC has actually incorporated some aspects of the security system used for nuclear weapons.

The structure used for EXC's security is called the 3-way database system.

An simple overview of EXC's 3-way database system:

This system has already been approved by the Japanese government, and a patent for it was issued on April 6, 2018.

If the US President were to carry out the procedure to launch a nuclear missile, how do you think it will go? In the United States, the President can command the military's chief commander, meaning that he has the power to launch nuclear missiles. Therefore, the president is accompanied by a military adviser with an attache case just in case of an emergency where a nuclear weapon is needed.

The attache case contains an authorization code for the procedure to launch a nuclear missile. In order to actually issue a command to launch, the President, Minister of Defense, and the Chief of Staff must gather and agree to share each of their code. This is the only official way to launch a nuclear weapon.

If the nuclear weapon were to be accidentally fired, it will be irretrievable which is why the system can only launch when the 3 codes are gathered. By the way, the workers at the military base that actually launch the missile must be in pairs. If there is only 1 person it cannot be launched.

The EXC platform has 3 different types of database which constantly check each other.

Coin issuer is the database issuing excor, banks are the administrators responsible for the accounts and the transaction manager is responsible for the transactions.

As each database are independent, even if 1 gets hacked the other 2 databases will correct it in just 0.2 seconds. The reason why 3 is needed is because you will not know which is right when one gets hacked.

Thus in order to hack EXC, you must retroactively rewrite two or more databases in 0.2 seconds, but there are no computers fast enough to do that.

The attache case containing the authentication code is similar to the 3-way database system. The President, Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff corresponds to EXC with Coin Issuer, Bank and Transaction Manager.

From this you can see that EXC was designed with the same concept used to protect military weapons. Japan's national power is also divided into Legislative Power, Administrative Power and Judicial Power with a system for mutual monitoring. Australia also has it divided into 3 with its Parliament, Executive and Judiciary.

This is how the EXC platform is designed in order to prevent hacks.

Summary

The three-way database method, which is the cornerstone of excor (EXC) security, was created by applying the concept of "separation of three powers", which is also incorporated in the security of nuclear missile launch systems. As a result, the EXC platform possesses security close EAL7, which is the highest level of security.