MIFARE: Security Cracks Aren't the Threat

Author: Jonathan Collins, Principal Analyst, Wireless Healthcare and M2M

Published: 18 Sep 2008

MIFARE is the contactless IC that dwarfs all others – in both longevity and shipments. Under Philips Semiconductors and now NXP Semiconductors, MIFARE helped push contactless into transportation ticketing and then into applications such as payment, access control, and ID documents. Up to 2 billion MIFARE ICs have been shipped and used around the world. The vast majority of those ICs have shipped into contactless transportation ticketing systems. MIFARE is not the only contactless ticketing specification. Its dominant position in the market has long made it the target for competing offerings from a range of IC and systems vendors. When the news hit the stands that the MIFARE cryptography had been cracked, the competition looked well positioned to benefit. The security breach is not the only issue surrounding MIFARE, but it is worth examining since it raises a host of other concerns.

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