Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05@uow.edu.au>
Smart Card Antihack Hardware System
28-10-1998 21:17
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. 1998 OCT 28 (Newsbytes) -- By Craig Menefee,
Newsbytes. Schlumberger, the European firm whose Smart Cards & Terminals
group is now pivotal in the smart card industry, has announced a
hardware-based data shield against unauthorized smart card access or
"crack" attempts that use probes, electron beams or ion beams to probe the
contents.
It sounds like science fiction, but Schlumberger officials say real
attempts have been reported that used such tools to plumb cards for their
data. Smart card contents can run from credit card numbers to physical
access authorizations and can be valuable to thieves who manage to snoop
out the data.
Schlumberger officials told Newsbytes late Tuesday the firm believes
the answer is a physical shield against such "cracking" attempts, which is
needed, they said, for the cards to reach their full financial or security
potential.
Ironically, Schlumberger's anticracking "solution" is to make a smart
card's internal chip itself crack to pieces, becoming unreadable, when
probed.
The actual system is called SiShell, pronounced "seashell." It works by
changing the physical layering of components at the chipmaking plant.
David Karpenske, Schlumberger's vice president of marketing in the
firm's San Jose office, explained to Newsbytes that manufacturers using
the system will layer a compound on top of the wafer used for smart card
integrated circuits (ICs). The compound shatters, taking the underlying IC
with it, if someone attempts to pull out information by using probe
needles, e-beams or ion beams.
"The approach allows you to discourage physical attacks," said
Karpenske. "What happens is that the compound, bonded to the chip, is
brittle. That makes the chip itself brittle, in effect. If you try to
probe the device, it will fragment to pieces."
To make it work, Karpenske said, the manufacturer must restructure the
chip. No circuits have to change, but the chip layers are deposited
differently, with less depth at the back of the device. As a result, the
chip "features" or circuits are layered onto a much thinner wafer. When
the compound is added, it brings the whole assembly back up to the
original thickness, so nothing else has to change.
"What happens is that if you try to probe through the compound, it
actually fractures and the silicon device itself breaks into pieces,"
Karpenske explained.
Karpenske says the process mechanisms are already in place at various
manufacturers, although he declined to specify which ones. He did say
adopting the system is not expensive since it involves no design or form
factor changes.
He said probe-resistant chips will start sampling in the first quarter
of 1999, ramping up to production from there.
As for how critical the technology may be to market acceptance of the
cards in areas like the US, Karpenske said the answer depends on how
important physical security may be.
"In any market, whether it's geographic or oriented toward
applications, when security is critical you'll find a lot of standards
that cover logical security. What this does is provide a layer of physical
security. It won't let hackers even make physical attacks to find data
pin-outs or the like."
Karpenske says there is a market for such chips and vendors in several
areas are already looking at the system's ability to add a layer of
security, ranging "from financial to pay TV."
More information is available on the Internet at
http://www.slb.com/smartcards .
-o-
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Received on Thu Oct 29 09:50:39 1998