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| Researchers have claimed to develop a new software that will enables your smartphones to act as versatile key for more secure access control |
Washington: Now, opening your car and home doors using smartphone apps will
be more secure and versatile as researchers have developed new software that
will enables the technology allows enterprise employees to access offices and
other enterprise premises using digital access control tokens stored on their
mobile phones.
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure
Information Technology SIT in Darmstadt, Germany, will be demonstrating their
ShareKey software, a solution to popularise the method.
ShareKey works using the Near Field Communication (NFC)
transmission standard, which allows data to be exchanged wirelessly over short
ranges of up to a few centimeters.
The technology enables the phone to emulate a contactless
smartcard that can be used with standard contactless smartcard readers.
The ShareKey app allows an enterprise to distribute and
manage the digital access control tokens of its employees in an efficient and
controlled way. Tokens can be issued and revoked remotely, delegated to other
employers or visiting guests, and support context-aware and time-limited access
control policies.
Storing and handling
digital access control tokens on a mobile phone raises risks of being targeted
by attacks. Particularly, in the context of enterprise usage scenarios
attackers may be motivated to perform sophisticated attacks. These risks are
addressed by the underlying platform security architecture, which protects
digital access control tokens on the smartphone.