A METHOD FOR OPENING A VAULT OR SAFE RESPONSIVE TO A SECURITY CODE TRANSMITTED BY A REMOTE HOST COMPUTER

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a method for opening a terminal vault or safe responsive to a security code transmitted by a remote host computer.

Background of Invention

The term "vault" as used througout within this specification covers any type of safety boxes, such as safe deposits (i.e. bank vaults) and particularly ATM (Automated Teller Machine) and SST (Self Service Terminal) devices, which are prevented from an unauthorized access and which are equipped with mechanical and/or electromechanical lock devices and are geographically stationary or mobile.

There are numerous of mechanical keys or digital decoder devices that are being used to make unauthorized access to vaults equipped with mechanical and/or electromechanical lock devices. Whilst the use of improved material production devices and digital decoding techniques with fraudulent purposes diminishes the safety of vaults, the need of providing additional and efficient security measures becomes more pronounced. With this purpose, the opening of a terminal vault by means of a security code transmitted by a host computer — once predetermined conditions are fulfilled — may provide a solution.

The patent application JP 3008081 discloses a process, whereby a command is entered by an authorized individual to a keyboard at a monitoring center to be sent to an ATM, the command is processed by a control unit at the ATM, and if the amount of money within the ATM cassette is lesser than 10,000 Yen, this fact being monitored at a monitoring unit, such that a 10,000-Yen ATM cassette is supplied to said ATM by an authorized individual.

Summary of Invention

The object of the present invention is to enhance the security level of vaults equipped with mechanical or electromechanical lock devices by accessing to a remote computer and sending to the vault a security code.

In order to achieve this object, the present invention provides a method for opening a vault, which is equipped with mechanical or electromechanical lock devices and which is geographically stationary or mobile, this method comprising the following steps of:

a) generating a random code by a terminal vault, b) encrypting the generated code by the respective terminal vault, c) transmitting the respective terminal vault's IP number and the encrypted code to a host computer by means of a modem, d) decrypting the encrypted code by the host computer, e) indexing the respective terminal vault's decrypted code and IP number at the host computer on a data record medium, f) encrypting the code indexed at the host computer, if a request is received for opening of a lock of the respective terminal vault according to predetermined conditions, g) transmitting the encrypted code in the previous step to the respective terminal vault by means of a modem, h) decrypting the encrypted code previously transmitted to the respective terminal vault, i) comparing the decrypted code with the random code generated at the first step, and opening the respective terminal vault's lock if the codes are identical, and keeping said look unopened if the codes are not identical, j) if the respective terminal vault's lock is opened, repeating the steps a to i given above.

Brief Description of Figures

The present invention is to be evaluated together with the annexed figures briefly described hereunder to make clear the subject embodiment and the advantages thereof.

Figure 1 is a schematic representation of the vault, host computer, and the respective components according to the present invention.

Figure 2 illustrates the process steps of the communication method between the vault and host computer according to the present invention.

Reference Numbers of Parts in Figures

1 Host computer

2 Modem

3 Computer

4 Vault

5 Vault's modem

6 Vault's computer

7 Reader

Detailed Description of Invention

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, first of all the host computer (1) must be capable of identifying the terminal vault (4), which is so called hand shaking process, in order to have the vault (4) communicate with the host computer (1). For this purpose, when the terminal vault (4) is first powered, the vault's computer (6) generates preferably a 128-bit random code, such that this code is encrypted and transmitted to the host computer's modem (2) by means of the vault's modem (5), together with an IP number previously assigned to the respective terminal vault (4).

The encrypted code received by the host computer's modem (2) is decrypted by a computer (3) at the host computer, and the decrypted code is indexed at the host computer (1) together with the IP number of the respective terminal vault (4), so that the host computer (1) identifies - hand shaking is provided- the respective terminal vault (4).

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an operator in front of the vault makes a phone call to an operator of the host computer and requests a code to be transmitted to open the respective terminal vault's lock. The operator of the host computer enters a command to the host computer to have a code transmitted to the respective terminal vault, so that the terminal vault's (4) previously-indexed code is encrypted and sent from the host computer's modem (2) to the respective terminal vault's (4) modem (5).

The encrypted code received by the modem (5) of the respective terminal vault (4) is decrypted by the computer (6) within the vault and at first, it is compared with the random code generated by the vault. If these two codes match, the respective lock of the vault is opened, if not however, the lock is maintained in its closed position. If the vault lock is opened, said steps from the random code generation by the vault, to the opening of the vault's lock, are repeated.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the step of comparing the code transmitted remotely to the vault (4) with the code generated by the vault may be subjected to a certain number of matching attempts; thus, for instance, when three successive mismatches occur, the communication between the remote computer and the respective terminal vault is interrupted, and the IP number of the respective terminal vault (4) is optionally altered and/or the terminal vault (4) is arranged to generate a new random code, so that this IP number and/or new code is/are transmitted through the vault's modem (5) to the host computer (1) and indexing is performed.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the communication between the operator in front of the vault and the operator of the host computer may be performed by other methods except the phone communication to open the respective terminal's vault (4). For this purpose, for example, a reader (7) can be adapted to the terminal vault (4), such that when the operator in front of the vault provides an identification card to the card reader (7), the identification data is read and preferably encrypted and transmitted to the modem (2) of the host computer via the vault's modem (5), and the previously indexed code of the respective terminal vault is sent from the host computer (1) to this vault.

The system according to the present invention can be applied equally to mobile vaults. As an example, the opening of money cassettes transferred by a vehicle for delivery to an ATM (Automated Teller Machine) or SST (Self Service Terminal) or to a bank's vault can also be provided by means of a lock code to be transmitted from a host computer as described above. In this mobile vault application, the vault can comprise also a GPS receiver in addition to a modem so that the geographic location of the vault can be determined instantly.

The modem (2) of the host computer and the modem (5) of the vault according to the present invention can both be a wireless GSM modem such as GPRS, Edge, 3G, and a cable modem. In consequence, the communication between the host computer (1) and the terminal vault (4) can be provided in a wireless manner such as the satellites, GSM etc., and in cabled manner such as DSL, leased line etc.