RE: Clear text password exposure in Datakey's tokens and smartcards

[Bart.Lansing () kohls com]

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 () lists netsys com 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 () electriccat co uk] 
> Sent: Thursday, 5 August 2004 8:39 PM
> To: Toomas Soome; lionel.ferette () belnet be
> Cc: vuln () hexview com; full-disclosure () lists netsys com;
> bugtraq () securityfocus com
> 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


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