Smart Card Security and Applications

ANNOTATION

In clear, comprehensible language, this book provides a solid overview of the benefits and limitations of smart cards for secure applications, and shows how to implement the procedures needed to make smart cards effective in protecting information.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This extensively updated, second edition of the popular Artech House book, Smart Card Security and Applications, offers you a current overview of the ways smart cards address the computer security issues of today's distributed applications. Brand new discussions on multi-application operating systems, computer networks, and the Internet are included to keep you abreast of the very latest developments in this field. The book provides you with technical details on the newest protection mechanisms, features a discussion on the effects of recent attacks, and gives you a clear methodology for solving your unique security problems. From user authentication in remote payments, Internet transactions, and telephony... to fraud and counterfeit in card payments... to electronic ticketing, portability, and confidentiality, this comprehensive resource describes the major applications of smart cards. It explains how smart cards are particularly relevant to Internet-based applications, and to payment in the modern world through the use of cryptography, public key infrastructures, and biometrics.

SYNOPSIS

Smart cards are all around us, and their security features can be utilized to protect data in almost any computer system. In clear, comprehensible language, this book provides a solid overview of the benefits and limitations of smart cards for secure applications, and shows how to implement the procedures needed to make smart cards effective in protecting information. The author examines the unique hardware and software elements behind each type of smart card, explains the various cardholder identification methods, and guides readers through the process of choosing the most suitable level of technology and encryption and protecting the smart card through all stages of its lifecycle. The book also provides an inside look at how smart cards are currently being used to provide security in the telecommunications, finance, health care, and travel industries, examines the unique problems posed by multi-application cards, and explores current smart card issues and trends. It includes a working model for use in designing a smart card security system, as well as a full glossary and description of standards.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

Smart cards (aka: chip or integrated circuit cards) can only be as intelligent as their designers and consumers make and use them; issuers and card holders still bear responsibilities. These plastic cards, the latest advance in payment card technology, have diffused worldwide in the form of prepaid and reloadable payment, telephone, travel, and most recently, health care, cards. The author takes readers inside the micro-circuitry of system components and on a high- tech tour of security standards, measures (user identification via passwords and biometrics), his security model (including a risk analysis checklist), and trends (identification through DNA?). A glossary deciphers the jargon. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

Mike Hendry is a freelance consultant in electronic payment systems and data communications. He holds an M.B.A. from the International Management Institute, Geneva, and an M.A. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is the author of Practical Computer Network Security (Artech House, 1995, 0-89006-801-1) and Implementing EDI (Artech House, 1993, 0-89006-664-7).

ACCREDITATION