What security capabilities can contactless smart cards support?
Contactless smart cards use RF technology, but, by design, operate at a short range (less than 4 inches) and can support the equivalent security capabilities of a contact smart card chip (see below). Contactless smart cards and readers conform to international standards, ISO/IEC 14443 and ISO/IEC 7816, and can implement a variety of industry-standard cryptographic protocols (e.g., AES, 3DES, RSA, ECC). Contactless smart cards that implement security features are referred to as RF-enabled smart cards. The contactless smart chip includes a smart card secure microcontroller and internal memory and has unique attributes RFID tags lack–i.e., the ability to securely manage, store and provide access to data on the card, perform complex functions (for example, encryption and mutual authentication) and interact intelligently via RF with a contactless reader. Applications using contactless smart cards support many security features that ensure the integrity, confidentiality and privacy of inform
