Secure Transaction Processing in Heterogeneous Application Environments

Abstract: Transaction processing in a heterogeneous application environment can be a very
insecure activity. This is because such transactions are vulnerable to numerous threats, such as cybercrime, fraud, espionage, identity theft, and other technological and organizational
problems. This study focuses on how a set of applications and security solutions can be
integrated in a secure, reliable, and sustainable way using message-based middleware. It is
not difficult to create a secure transaction processing system if it does not require horizontal
scalability, does not require dealing with a great diversity of applications and hardware, and
involves only a very low volume of transactions. However, making a secure transaction processing system that does need to deal with these factors has been quite challenging. This last issue of making a system that can deal with a high volume of transactions in brief interval
of time for sustained periods has been particularly challenging. Centered upon a proof-of-
concept implementation, this paper proposes the use of message-based middleware as the most appropriate solution for this security problem. It also describes the creation of one such
software system, describes some tests of this solution under simulated conditions, and critically evaluates the results.