Secure Middleware for Mobile Phones and UICC Applications

In this paper we describe our concept, design and current prototype implementation of a new middleware for mobile phones and UICC. The purpose of the middleware is to be used as an interface between applications, loaded in mobile phones, and functionalities of the corresponding supporting modules (applets) stored in UICC. At the moment, our middleware supports only security and mobile payment functions. Our primary goal was to explore the features that multi–application chips provide and to create a new way for handling of sensitive information when stored and used in mobile phones. Another goal is to extend the middleware to hide technology details of underlying UICC and their applets, so that applications developed on the top of the middleware are independent of the underlying mobile phone technologies. We plan to extend the current version of our middleware module to be used with other UICC applications and alternative mobile operating systems.