RE: [Full-Disclosure] Clear text password exposure in Datakey's tokens and smartcards
Guys...
RSA has been doing PIN cards for ages...I don't get the hangup on
SmartCards vs "plain old" something you have/something you know two factor
http://www.rsasecurity.com/node.asp?id=1311
Cost of entry/ownership is nothing remotely close to the $1000 you mention
Lyal...in fact, it's under 1/10 of that on a per seat basis...
Why get hung up on it being a smartcard, when you can do two factor with a
much lower entry cost and do it, frankly, easier?
Bart Lansing
Manager, Desktop Services
Kohl's IT
full-disclosure-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 08/05/2004 08:45:33 PM:
> 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:kev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, 5 August 2004 8:39 PM
> To: Toomas Soome; lionel.ferette@xxxxxxxxx
> Cc: vuln@xxxxxxxxxxx; full-disclosure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
> bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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