How to avoid card termination while learning about GlobalPlatform? - javacard

The GlobalPlatform smart-card standard defines irreversible state changes, such as card termination after too many failed authentications or initial card initialization. How does one learn about GlobalPlatform without burning through hundreds of smart-cards (which is expensive)?

Use a simulator. The JCOP toolset includes a simulator that runs within Eclipse, and implements GlobalPlatform commands.
When I've implemented e.g. the Secure Channel protocols myself, I compared the messages that my code generated with the messages generated by the simulator, using the default JCOP keys, until I was certain I had it right. It's just DES/3DES, but arranging the blocks to be encrypted/verified is tricky.
When I test against cards, I have a handful ready, and if authentication fails, I rotate cards, making sure that when I solve the problem I successfully authenticate against the cards with prior authentication failures.
I implemented GP Secure Channel protocols 01 and 02, and destroyed no more than two cards.

In addition the answer of pb2q, some cards may have additional access points next to the card manager which you may use to reset the card. Obviously, you need info on how to do it for a particular implementation, and quite possibly a key.

Related

Any secure USB dongle/token with internal AES and RSA, with simple API?

I've my C# NET6 desktop application to send to customers, important functions have been removed and implemented on a server
I've my public server on which I want to auth desktop app(license, feature...), get its blob, process it, send back
I consider the C# app crackable whatever obfuscator/protector I'll use (but i'll use anyway), server is considered secure, i need a secure point at customer premise.
The idea is to use an usb dongle to bring up a secure and authenticated session between desktop app and server.
Requisites for the dongle are:
Be able to do AES128(at least) and/or RSA1024(at least)
EAL5+/6+ secure MCU (nothing that could be dumped with glitches or baths in acid)
dll and API to talk with
So far i've looked at various sw protection dongle, but:
some are 15years old mcu and not sure if still in business
most doesn't tell what mcu is inside, some are fast (but silly) stm32, some are slow 8051
the expensive ones are the most complex ones, i mean it takes days to read unclear documentation and see that i don't need 90% of the package (enveloper, mssql db for my 50customers...)
i don't need at all their C# enveloper, I want to use a thirdparty/specific protector with VM
So i've looked at usb tokens PKI, FIDO2, PIV....but:
FIDO2 allows customer to reset pin and cear all certificates, no good as i want to burn keypair inside prior to ship to customer
PIV not found any cheap PIV only usb token, some FIDO2 expensive has also PIV interface, but...
to talk to FIDO2 and PIV i would need all the overload bloat of libraries that i very dislike (and also needs admin right, which i want to avoid)
PC/SC usb token are the most lowlevel to use, mscard lib and do whatever, nice but.....ISO-7816-8,9 are not public, costs like 300bucks to eventually see that my card vendor implemented custom stuff
I've 0x80 blob to send to dongle to powmod() it, that's all, no x509, no pkcs11, no base64, nothing human, just need a powmod(data) or an aes_dec(data).
Any suggestions?
While this is no full answer, I would like to address some issues:
You may underestimate the complexity required. Obviously necessary is some specification, whether RSA or AES operation is required. This has to show up somewhere, either as command parameter or as a set-up command (between host and connected token).
Pure modular exponentiation is unlikely to reach the desirable level of security, since RSA depends on padding to exclude some kinds of attack.
You may not like PKCS 11 interface, but it is proven and known to introduce no security issues. This may require notable effort if done on your own.
Given the mentioned EAL levels, my guess would be, that you need a smart card chip with USB interface.
The MCU is pretty irrelevant: to get crypto operations hardened, you need special hardware (as cryptographic coprocessors). It has little influence, how old the architecture of the chip is, which feeds the bytes to those.

RFID card programming cryptographically secure

I am trying to develop a custom cryptographically secure protocol for authenticating through an RFID smart card, all I can find over the internet are generic info on how write static Tags into the card.
For my project I need for the reader to send a Challenge nonce to the card (fixed length random bytes), then the card should send back the challenge encrypted with the hard-coded key (for example with AES CBC) or an hash HMAC.
The problem is: how can I program the card to do such behavior? I can write the code to do so, but how to "flash" it to the card. Also the code for the reader is not a problem (I want to use an Arduino with a reader module).
And then has a passive chip enough power to do this kind of calculations or is better to use an active one, considering that the distance would be few centimeters, such as behind a door?
A passive tag can't do this. Those just hold serial numbers that they spit out back.
You need some smarter card. You have basically two choices:
1) Choose a general-purpose card that fit your needs
The authentication scheme you describe is very widely used, and implemented by virtually all general-purpose smart cards, whether with contact or contactless (RF) interfaces (or both). If you go this way, you don't need to program the card with your own code, you just need to get the specs and initialize the card with the key value you want by sending the appropriate commands. And actually, with these cards, there are often generic tools available to initialize them. Easy.
Mifare (by NXP), for example is very widely used, easily available, and cards are cheap (drawback: it is certainly not the most secure cards ever made). You could use Mifare Classic - with proprietary NXP security protocol - specs here (be careful, the reader must be compatible) or Mifare UltraLight C, with open 3DES crypto - specs here. There are other variants, as well (e.g. Mifare Plus, which uses AES). Just don't go for the simple Mifare Ultralight, which doesn't provide authentication means. You'll see that for all these type of cards, there is a builtin authentication scheme that can functionally fulfill your needs (it is actually a mutual authentication, so it does more that what you require, but it's fine).
FeliCa (made by Sony), ACOS3 (made by ACS - specs here) are other possibilities, although I'm less familiar with it.
2) Get programmable cards
There are some, but it is not very easy to find for contactless and they are very expensive. You can lookup:
BasicCard (ZeitControl), which exist with dual interface. Those cards are programmable in Basic, and there are some kits available (but I'm not familiar with it either).
JavaCard (any manufacturer), which is a standard, but those are hard to find for small volumes. A few online shops seem to have some, though. These cards are programmable in Java (actually a subset of Java). There are tools available for the development phase (from Oracle, or even as Eclipse Plugins, for example). Then, for loading your custom applet in the smart card, you need to get familiar with GlobalPlatform, which is another (publicy available) standard, describing the way applications are managed in a smart card. This would be too broad to describe in detail here, though. You can find resources on the internet, but this road is definitely the most difficult.
Note, that NFC just describes the communication method and tells nothing about the intelligence available on other side.
More intelligence is needed (the command you seem to look for is called EXTERNAL AUTHENTICATE in ISO 7816-4), but does not help for your range problem, since the weaker the field, the less power is available. The idea of having communication through the door will only work for doors which are so weak, that a high-tech electronic protection won't improve overall security. The maximum distance achievable with standard field strength (heart pacemakers and similar devices limit that one) with nothing more than air between suffices typically for something like 10 centimeters. So for me it seems that your reader has to be on the outside and needs to be mechanically hardened against tampering itself.
(What would help, is a "card" with its own power source, so the field is only required for communication. As far as I know, this is mostly provided by a sort of external sleeve.)
What dim fails to mention is the product group of so-called native cards, which are typically only programmable with significant manufacturer support (non-disclosure agreement, probably fee involved), but luckily contain functionality for most use cases already, in your case the commands Get Challenge and External Authenticate.

Practical use of java cards

what's the current use of java cards? The documentation is either really old or really sparse.
After googling for some time, this is my perceived idea:
eID: signing document hash with private key, issued by central authority (government) - signing legal documents
unique ID - identification (of person) by ID, protected by PIN and secured by TLS
java connected edition web application - I've not been able to find any documentation for the usage of this, except template applications in IDEs. Why are APDU's still used when there's this layer available? Is the application for this non-existent?
Despite all the new functionalities, I see they're only used as identification for a central repository/provider? And the TLS is used to secure communication between the card and backend server?
Thanks.
SIM cards are usually Java Cards, banking cards from Mastercard and Visa are usually Java card, and so are many others. ePassports can be build using Java Card. There are secure elements within readers that are Java Card. Driver licenses, driver licenses, digital tachograph cards, access control cards, cards holding PGP keys, etc. etc. etc..
There are billions of Java Cards, and Java Card is the only reason why Java was claimed by Sun to be on 3 billion devices (and note that they will probably not count Android as that officially is not Java). Currently the JCF (Java Card Forum) is also pushing Java Card forward as secure / programmable element to be used in IoT devices.
eID can be and usually is used more than for just signing documents. It is mainly used for authentication. It may also be used just to verify specific attributes of a person such as his / her age. And it can of course be used to decrypt information if an encryption key pair is present.
So no, there are many more things that Java Card can be used for.
As for the connected edition: it requires highly expensive hardware (smart cards are products that rely on high volume where every cent matters). Furthermore, a lot of protocols are specified using APDU's: you cannot just replace that with HTTPS to the smart card without respecifying the protocols.
ISO/IEC 7816-4 is a horrible standard - if you can call it that - but it currently is the only broadly accepted one. Java Card RMI has not caught on either; I don't see why the connected edition will suddenly change that.

BLE Restricted Access

I have designed a BLE peripheral into a product. There will be an app developed (Android, Windows) but for now I am writing firmware to support the app in the blind.
We cannot have someone access the peripheral who is not authorized. To handle this I have a password stored in firmware.
There are seven custom characteristics, all but three of which are disabled upon initial connection. The password characteristic is write only of course, once the correct password is sent the other characteristics are enabled.
I have no experience with BLE until now so I have no idea if this scheme is reasonable or not.
Is there a bettor way to limit access?
Thanks
Rich
The Bluetooth standard defines the pairing/bonding concept with its corresponding encryption. Based on your specification it doesn't seem like it fits your needs.
You therefore have to come up with something on your own. How secure you make it is completely up to you. Your proposal is the simplest and most unsecure way of doing it. The most secure thing you can do is use some protocol created for these purposes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password-authenticated_key_agreement) to create a cryptographic key which you then use for authenticated encryption when you later communicate with your device. You decide which way you want to go based on the security level you want.

using java card instead of SIM in android with SEEK

I've patched android with SEEK for Galaxy S3 and after some struggle I'm now able to send APDUs to SIM card and get proper responses.
I want to place my own applet inside SIM but since there is no way we can get the access to do so, I start to wonder if there is anyway we can issue a java card to work like a SIM card. All I need is a java card that the phone can't distinguish from a SIM, no network coverage is needed and I know it is almost impossible to create a SIM that works OK with operator and gives network coverage.
The reason for all this is I need to send APDUs and work with my applet, but if I insert a java card instead of a SIM card in GS3, it gives me no access at all.
So my question is this:
Is it possible to issue a java card so that it looks like a SIM by the phone (and not the operator)?
or Is it possible to change android so that it gives needed access when there is a java card in it, i.e. RIL works as usual?
EDIT
Okay, I think I'll try to issue a Java Card with following properties:
First, it will have an auto selected applet (default applet) that from now on will be call fake-UICC.
Second, in fake-UICC we'll emulate the file system of UICC (according to http://www.in2eps.com/fo-uicc/tk-fo-uicc-mf.html).
Third, since different class is used for SIM APDUs (0xA0) so All APDUs sent from RIL will be directed to fake-UICC by JCRE, since class+instruction is not recognized by normal Java Card. e.g. 0xA0A4 is select for SIM but 0x00A4 is select command for Java Card.
In last step, we will try to send exact same responses a real SIM would send to each APDU.
Maybe it won't work but I think it's worth a try.
SIM Card (UICC) accessed through SEEK is not the only secure element you can use in your cellphone.
On the market there are other Java Card solutions: mostly based on microSD slot (provided e. g. by GoTrust or Feitian Technologies), which you should be able to access through SEEK.
Some cellphones (Galaxy S3 is not this case, unfortunately) are equipped with a special secure element slot, which you can insert common smart card (mostly by Oberthur) into and access through SEEK (see http://www.nfcworld.com/technology/embedded-secure-element-ese/ for some devices with this feature).
There is an interesting article about SE options: http://nelenkov.blogspot.cz/2012/08/accessing-embedded-secure-element-in.html
If you know some other vendors offering microSD Java Card products, please write them down in comments and I will add them to my post. This answer is not supposed to be any advertisement for the companies mentioned above.
Well, Actually I'm not sure if this solution works or not, and as dear #Vojta mentioned in the comments under his answer I would like to discourage people from the following attempts. It will be difficult, time-consuming and probably with no useful results. He knows a lot more than me in this field.
Anyway, as you wanted I posted my suggestion:
Each file in the system file of the SIM/USIM card is linked to a hexadecimal number as its addresses (AID). These AIDs are defined in GSM and ETSI standards (GSM 11.11 for example). You can write some Javacard applets to simulate that system file.
As SIM/USIM card's AIDs are shorten than JavaCard AIDs, you might need to choose a Java Card that support partial AID selection and use this capability to refer incoming command to its associated applet.
I think you can simulate all the system file inside a single applet also and then make that applet default selected applet.
If you had any success with this solution, please inform us. :)

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