Is your ID card secure?

When selecting an attendance or access system, apart from other criteria, it is important to choose the appropriate type of identification card. In Slovakia, several types of identification cards are used in HR and building security solutions, but not all of them are equally secure. The most widespread technology still uses so-called read-only cards, i.e. cards with a fixed identifier, which cannot be changed. However, the problem with these cards is that it is very easy to copy the card identifier and "clone" the cards.

There are other technologies that significantly increase the overall security of the solutions they are part of. These technologies enable to write the selected identifier or information into the card memory. The writing is possible only with the help of a writing key, which you can create or request from a card supplier. Reading keys are then used to read the written data. In this case, we speak about a highly secure encrypted transfer of information from the ID card to the relevant software application. Furthermore, these cards are multi-application, which means that multiple applications can write the information into the different parts of the card memory, so-called sectors, and subsequently read the information from them independently.

 Currently, many companies conduct internal and external security audits related not only to the protection of tangible assets but also intellectual property. The list of examples includes the development of various devices, components, etc. Therefore, nowadays it is appropriate to ask ourselves the question, "Is the ID card, that we use, really secure?"