The Growth of Contactless Smart Cards

First there was the magnetic stripe card that supported the purpose of identifying users for many, many years. Then, thanks mainly to the growing needs of the corporate market and secure parking control systems, we saw the ubiquitous proximity card introduced. These cards allowed users to access doors, car parks and other controlled access areas without the need to swipe a card through a reader. Simply placing the card against a reader would confirm the users access privileges and either grant or deny access.  For many years this technology served its purpose well and millions of cards now exist in the worldwide market. In reality these cards functioned much the same as the magnetic stripe card by simply providing the card reader and number held on the card.

While these two technologies proved to be extremely reliable and simple to use they also posed significant security issues. As an extension to the proximity card we saw the introduction of a cash purse. Unfortunately these cards presented security issues as unscrupulous individuals  discovered means to read and replicate the user information and funds held on the card. Many proven instances, including high profile installations of these card formats (such as the London transport card) have proven that they are far from safe of secure for the woodbe hacker or low level crim. See http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/london_tube_sma.html and http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/03/london-undergro/?intcid=inform_relatedContent

The trade off between the speed and convenience of reading a proximity card was the security. A contact smart card was always much more secure.

In response to these known security issues and due to advancements in technology we are now seeing greater use of contactless smart cards that offer improved security by utilising encrypted sectors on the card. The sectors on a contactless smart card can be basically thought of as separate application spaces on one card with each application space protected by its own encryption.

BEAR has led the market in its delivery and use of this card type. A number of contactless card types exist in the marketing including iClass from HID and Sony FeliCa. With experience in developing the required systems to encode and read card sectors we have seen first hand just how well these card types can work. A number of industry articles are questioning whether the magnetic stripe card is dead or dying. When considering functionality the quick answer, I believe, is yes. However pricing must be a consideration and at the moment the traditional magnetic stripe card is significantly cheaper than contactless smart cards. This will change as contactless smart cards become more mainstream and used for more and more applications within educational and corporate environments.

Here is a link to an interesting article from a US publication discussing the increasing use of contactless smart cards.

http://www.cr80news.com/2010/01/26/is-the-future-of-campus-cards-contactless