The coming Web security woes (News.com)

The coming Web security woes (News.com)

Posted Jul 12, 2005 9:29 UTC (Tue) by tgb (guest, #745)
In reply to: The coming Web security woes (News.com) by dlang
Parent article: The coming Web security woes (News.com)

don't think that something like a USB key holding your private cert will do the job, the bad guy can just snag a copy of the cert when it's accessed by the local system, you need a true smart card [...]

There have been devices available for several years which are the same dimensions as a USB flash memory device, but actually contain what amounts to a smartcard and reader rolled up into one. Aladdin make the eToken range, I think there was an Italian company called Eutronics who made something similar, but I can't find them right now.

Because these are the same technology as smartcards, there's no risk of "the bad guy [snagging] a copy of the cert when it's accessed by the local system", because the cert isn't accessed by the local system, all the work happens on-board the device.

---

(Log in to post comments)