Smart Card

Introduction        (5 mark question)

A Smart Card, Chip Card, or Integrated Circuit Chip (ICC) is any pocket-sized card with embedded integrated circuits, smart card is a plastic card about the size of a credit card, with an embedded microchip that are loaded with data used for telephone calling, electronic cash payments, and other applications, and then periodically refreshed for additional use.
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Fig 1 : Smart card chip structure and packaging

Smart card can provide identification, authentication, data storage and application processing. Smart cards may provide strong security authentication for single sign-on (SSO) within large organizations. Smart card are suitable for personal identification tasks, the chip is implemented with some cryptographic algorithm.

Currently or soon, you may be able to use a smart card to :

• Dial a connection on a mobile telephone and be charged on a pre-call basics.
• Establish your identity when logging on to an Internet access provider or to an online bank.
• Pay for parking meters to get on subways, trains, or buses.
• Give hospitals or doctors personal data without filling out a form.
• Make small purchases at electronic stores on the web.
• Buy gasoline at a gasoline station .

How Smart Card Works - 

A Smart Card contains more information than a magnetic strip card and it can be programmed for different applications. Some card contains programming and data to support multiple application and some can be updated to add new applications after they are issued. Smart cards can be designed to be inserted into a slot and read by a special reader or to be read at a distance, such as at a toll both.

Cards can be disposable or re-loadable.

An Industry standard interface between programming and PC hardware in a smart card has been defined by PC/SC working group, representing Microsoft, IBM, Bull, Schulmberger and other interested companies. Another standard is called OpenCard. There are two leading smart card operating systems : Java and MULTOS.

Types of Smart Card -

There are three types of Smart card :

• Contact smart card : Contact based card can only be accessed by a contact technology reader. The contact area of smart card comprising several gold-plated contact parts, which is used as a communication medium between the smart card and reader.

Fig 2: Contact card module

• Contact less smart card : Non contact cards use some form of electronic signal to transfer data, current cards use RFID technology.

Fig 3 : Metro smart card (RFID technology)

• Hybrid smart card : Dual-interface cards implement contact less and contact interfaces on a single card with some shared storage and processing.

Fig 4 : Twin/Hybrid card

Applications :

• Financial
• SIM
• Identification
• Public transit
• Computer security
• Schools
• Healthcare

Issues :

• The plastic card in which the chip is embedded is fairly flexible.
• Malware attack on hosts computer can broke the smart card security model.
• Malware can override the communication between the user and the application.
• Lack of standards for functionality and security.

Reference :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_card

http://www.smartcardbasics.com/smart-card-types.html

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/smart-card

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