Glossary
ANSI - American National Standards Institute - A private, non-profit organization that administers and coordinates U.S. voluntary standards.  The ANSI standards that cover the processing and securing of financial transactions are stricly followed by the industry.

ATM - Automatic Teller Machine - An unattended electronic machine in a public place, connected to a data system and related equipment and activated by a bank customer to obtain cash withdrawals and other banking services.

Cryptogram/Ciphertext - An encrypted piece of data such that it is not possible to determine the original data without an encryption key.  The original data is also referred to as plaintext.

DES - Data Encryption Standard- A FIPS approved cryptographic algorithm as required by FIPS 140-1.

DUKPT - Derived Unique Key Per Transaction - a key management method used for security POS transactions.  Each transaction is protected with a unique key that is derived from non-secret data trasmitted as part of each transaction.

Encryption Key - A binary number of a certain length, for example, 128-bits that is generated by set of rules (usually a random number with a few restrictions).  Encryption keys are used by an encryption algorithm to protect data.  Encryption keys must be protected to prevent the data from being decrypted by the wrong entity.

FI - Financial Institution - An organization involved in the processing of electronic financial transactions.

Host Application Software - Software that handles electronic financial transactions, including those from ATM and POS networks.

HSM - Host Security Module - A secure device that performs cryptographic operations for financial transactions in conjunction with the host application software.

Key Component -  One of a set of two or more  parameters combined with an XOR to form an encryption key.

KEK - Key Encryption Key - An encryption key used to encrypt working keys, such as PIN encryption keys and PIN validation keys.

MFK - Master File Key - This is the first key loaded into an HSM.  The MFK is used to encrypt key encryption keys.

PIN - Personal Identification Number - A unique number either generated or chosen by the cardholder to protect ATM and debit transactions.

PIN Offset - A value stored on ATM and debit cards in the magnetic stripe that is used to compute a PIN  in a PIN validation check.

POS - Point of Sale - Frequently refers to devices or transactions from retail networks, as opposed to ATM networks.

TDES - Triple Data Encryption Standard- FIPS 46-3 approves TDES as the symmetric encryption algorithm of choice over DES.  TDES is a method for encrypting data in 64-bit blocks using three 56-bit keys by combining three successive invocations of the DES algorithm.

XOR - A binary arithmatic operation, often used in cryptography for masking values to prevent them from being directly viewed.



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