'Vulnerabilities of Smartcard/readers with a Single Layer of Authentication"

Abstract

Smartcard have been evolved from inferior equipment to complex high technology security solutions. Such solutions can support a variety of applications such as various areas in telecommunications, and banking services. These applications require security features so that they are resistant to attackers from external sources. Smart card technology involves a chip card that is small in size and has integrated circuits that have microprocessor and volatile memory components. Smart cards have various benefits such as they can directly relate to volume of information and applications. Smart cards are programmed with various factors such as multiple banking credentials, loyalty programs etc. There are various types in which smartcards are available such as contact-less cards and contact cards. The main aim of designing a smartcard is that they are designed for security such as detection of recovery from security issues. Smartcards can provide data storage, application processing, identification and authentication. There are three forms in which smartcards security can be categorised such as physical, logical and side channel. There are some or the other characteristics that are involved with each of these category. It is thus required that smartcards should be protected from all kinds of threats. There are various forms of authentication that are being involved in protection of smartcards. These are single layer, multi-layer authentication etc. Multi-layer authentication is considered to be an effective way to in protecting smartcards from threats. In context to this, the following research paper is based on assessing the 'vulnerabilities of smart card/readers with a single layer of authentication".

Chapter1: Introduction

Over the last 30 years, smart card technology has been advanced. For instance, there have been various improvements that have been made in this context. These includes improvement in storage and processing capabilities, the management of software has matured, enhanced security, integration of multiple applications have now been integrated on the card as well as various technologies are available now. A variety of logical access applications are used in the organisation with the help of smart cards. These applications include virtual private network (VPN), one-time passwords (OTPs), digital signatures, secure wireless network logon, and data encryption (Adeyemi and Ithnin, n.d.).

Authentication is the process that reflects what is genuine. In terms of authentication of smart card, is determined by identifying a person in terms of background documents, biometric data or any other electronic system. Smart cards have been used for increasing the security of a person’s identity credentials. In terms of the person’s possessions, credentials can be stored on the card. Attackers need to have physical possession of the card as well as such process is time consuming and expensive (Apelbaum, 2007).

Smartcards are now used more as business cards instead of simple phone cards. These cards are made up of inferior equipment into complex high technology security solutions. Such cards can support large number of applications such as banking services, telecommunications etc. The securities of smartcards are limited into a memory chip in which stored value can be managed. The smartcards have been more advanced now as they are reusable, there are large speed transaction times, provide more loyalty and can hold large amount of data. But on the same side, strong authentication and security protection is required for the smartcards (Salvendy, 2012).

There are various challenges faced by smartcards users. For instance, there is a fundamental shortcoming with reference to authentication mechanism such as lack of trusted user interface. Though smartcards have a secure PIN pad, but reader’s display is not used as a secure output device. Single layer authentication is required for smartcards as it will help in securing the data. The significance of the present study is to find out the vulnerability of single layer authentication of smartcards. Other than this, the study also focuses on the need of protection of smartcards against skimming attackers. The research questions for the present study are as follows:

• What is the concept of single layer authentication of smartcards?
• What are the vulnerabilities of single layer authentication of smartcards?
• What is the need of authentication of smartcards?
• How can the smartcards be prevented against attacks?

PROBLEMS Group A 1 Five employees are available to perform four...