This exposure, of PIN compromise, is genric in all smartcard products today, unless a dedicated PINpad or biometric-sensor equipped readers are used - putting cost of ownership towards $1000 in some cases. PC/SC doesn't help - as a data interfcae API spec, it excludes human interface aspects. STIP (Small Terminal Interoperability Platform at www.stip.org) moves in this direction, but has evolved into many variants to interoperate with proprietary vendors and proprietary industry standards.
The challenges in putting biometric sensors or PINpads onto cards include the need to conform to ISO 7816 for form factor, physical resilience etc, and that the cards are unpowered. Or, someone redesigns the entire form-factor, user interface model, portability and business model - something that has previously failed to go anywhere. Something like a mobile phone or PDA is a good compromise tool to this overall exposure, imho. Lyal -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Sheldrake [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, 5 August 2004 8:39 PM To: Toomas Soome; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Clear text password exposure in Datakey's tokens and smartcards Surely if the user is entering a passphrase then the same problem exists - that of effectively eavesdropping that communication from the keyboard? Ignoring the initial expense for a moment, wouldn't it have made a lot of sense to include the keypad actually on the cards? Obviously, card readers would need to be contructed such that the keypad part of the card would be exposed during use. The keypad security could then rely on the tamper resistant properties of the rest of the card. From a costs perspective, I would guess that the actual per-card cost increase would be minimal if hundreds of millions of these cards were produced. Kev > Lionel Ferette wrote: > >> Note that this is true for almost all card readers on the market, not >> only for Datakey's. Having worked for companies using crypto smart >> cards, I have conducted a few risk analysis about that. The conclusion >> has always been that if the PIN must be entered from a PC, and the >> attacker has means to install software on the system (through directed >> viruses, social engineering, etc), the game's over. >> The only solution against that problem is to have the PIN entered >> using a keypad on the reader. Only then does the cost of an attack >> raise significantly. But that is opening another can of worms, because >> there is (was?) no standard for card readers with attached pin pad (at >> the time, PC/SCv2 wasn't finalised - is it?). >> > > at least some cards are supporting des passphrases to implement secured > communication channels but I suppose this feature is not that widely in > use.... how many card owners are prepared to remember both PIN codes > and passphrases... > > toomas > > -- Kevin Sheldrake MEng MIEE CEng CISSP Electric Cat (Bournemouth) Ltd _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
