ASK Sets New Price/Performance Standard for Dual Interface Smart Cards
16 December, 2002
category: Contactless, Transit
GTML2 Contact/Contactless Microprocessor Card for Automated Fare Collection Receives Level EAL1+ Evaluation Certificate Achieving Bankcard Class Security Rating
PARIS, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ – Cartes 2002 – ASK S.A., a world leader in dual interface contactless smart cards, today announced GTML2, a cost effective yet highly secure and powerful dual interface microprocessor smart card dedicated to Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) systems and ticketing applications. The card, which is being demonstrated in the ASK booth 4R066 at the international Cartes exhibition now taking place in Paris, is available immediately.
The company also announced that the GTML2 card has received the EAL1+ Evaluation Certificate, meeting the industry’s highest and most stringent security requirements. Based on what is called “Common Criteria (ISO 15408), the security evaluation methodology combines the European ITSEC and the North American “Orange Book” methodologies.
The Common Criteria define different security levels including EAL1+, a level normally associated with bankcards. The security evaluation analyzes security mechanisms included in a smart card, both logical and physical, to confirm its readiness to thwart attacks of hackers on the card’s software and hardware. EAL1+ also includes penetration tests to check the chip’s resistance to potential threats.
For example, the attack proposed by two Cambridge University professors based on photo flashes against exposed microprocessor circuitry and reported in May 2002 in the New York Times, has long been known to the developers of the Common Criteria. Achieving the EAL1+ certification requires proven invulnerability to this and other many other potential attacks on smart cards.
“We optimized GTML2 as a contactless AFC cards that also works with other applications that require a contact interface,” said Bruno Moreau, deputy general manager for ASK. “We see this card setting new levels of price and performance for transit operators that want to combine ticketing with closed payment systems, city services, and student identification and university services access.”
In addition to its high level of security, the GTML2 microprocessor architecture delivers high-speed transactions and has the power for multi-application implementations, with an eight-bit microprocessor and 576 bytes EEPROM. GTML2 is also fully compatible with the full range of ASK contactless smart card products, so operators can choose the right mix of cards for their entire base of users.
GTML2 has extensive security features including diversified keys, PIN and session codes, challenge/response authentication, DES-X encryption of transactions and is fully ISO 14443 type B compliant. The card’s high-speed contactless communications use a frequency of 13.56 MHz at a rate of 105.9 Kilobits per second. Attributes of the communications protocol include anti-collision and 16 bits CRC features, and GTML2 has an automatic recovery mechanism – a data protection method against withdrawal of the card from the reader’s field before a transaction is complete.
GTML2 complies with all of the leading standards including:
* ISO 14443 Type B, Parts 1 to 4 for contactless smart cards
* ISO 7816-1-2-3-4 for contact smart cards
* ENV 1545 data structure compliant
Over 500,000 GTML2 are already in operation in Lisbon for Metropolitan de Lisbon transit system.
About ASK S.A.
Founded in 1997, ASK is today a world leader in the design, development, marketing and manufacturing of dual interface contactless smart cards. ASK, named one of the top 10 emerging technology companies in Europe, has already supplied more than 7 million contactless cards and paper contactless tickets that are in operation in more than 35 cities in Europe, Asia and America. Clients include SNCF and RATP in Paris; transit operators in Newark, Toronto, Lisbon, Lyon, Venice, Naples, Taipei and Nice; and BMS, a project in France sponsored jointly by the financial services and transport industries. The ASK manufacturing and personalization operations are near Nice in Sophia Antipolis, France with commercial offices in Paris and Hong Kong. In October 2001 ASK announced that it acquired the manufacturing assets for the Venus contactless smart cards developed by Motorola.
For more information please visit http://www.ask.fr.
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