A Perspective on Using Blockchain for Ensuring Security in Smart Card Systems

A Perspective on Using Blockchain for Ensuring Security in Smart Card Systems

Ankur Lohachab
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-5351-0.ch030
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Abstract

Due to the momentous growth in the field of Internet of Things (IoT), various commercial and government organizations are exploring possibilities of mass issuance of smart cards in different applications. Widespread deployment of smart card-based systems in heterogeneous environment would facilitate card holders to participate in these applications in a personalized manner. Despite the security features, valuable data and access to decisive services make these systems prime target for attackers. These systems can be subjected to a range of security attacks – from hardware exploitation to exploitation of software bugs, from unauthorized data access to social engineering, and so forth. In the future, where many sectors will be trying to adopt the concept of Blockchain, it will create new opportunities for benefiting citizens with enhanced security over their data. In this chapter, the author performs in-depth analysis over the role of Blockchain in securing the smart card ecosystem.
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Introduction

Introduction of the concept of smartness in technology is bringing more promising solutions to the modern digital world. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are taking the form of Internet of Things (IoT), chip cards are getting transformed into smart cards, and so forth. By addressing the issues of advanced underlying technologies like WSN, IoT further extends the idea of inter-connected networks by embedding networking features into physical world objects. In a similar fashion, smart cards also extend the concept of chips cards by making them more resourceful. Although magnetic-stripe enabled cards remained popular for around 30 years, industries over time have realized the need of storing more static data over the card itself. However, due to certain limitations as given in Table 1, magnetic-stripe cards are not considered as a reliable choice.

Table 1.
Magnetic-stripe cards and limitations
ParameterDescription
SecurityThese cards provide minimal level of security because it is easy to read and write data from these cards very easily. Hence, information can be easily stolen and the card can be easily duplicated.
StorageThese cards have limited amount of storage and thus can store only limited amount of information.
FunctionalityMagnetic stripe cards support restricted functionality and thus, are not suitable for many real-time applications.
Biometric information storage and matchingThese cards cannot store biometric templates of users as well as do not support on-card biometric matching.
Data diversityThese cards are not capable of storing diverse types of data.
Digital signature storageThese cards cannot store digital signature for enabling efficient auditing process.
Two-factor authenticationThese cards do not support two-factor authentication.

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