Identiv, Inc. has announced its first open source software release. The company is releasing the code used to program and personalise its uTrust TS Card line and is publishing the Open Access Card Format (OACF) that describes the data written to the cards.
Identiv’s uTrust TS Cards are secure credentials for physical access control, based on NXP®’s MIFARE DESFire EV1/EV2 high frequency (HF) 13.56 MHz technology, and are compatible with 125 kHz low frequency (LF) proximity card systems.
Raising physical access security standards
The use of proprietary encryption schemes and measures — or “security through obscurity” — has proven to be inadequate against modern attack methods. By publishing and sharing its Open Access Card Format, Identiv raises the standard of physical access security by encouraging others to use, review, or extend its implementation.
This tool will allow users to program and encode their own physical access cards with secure DESFire EV1/EV2 encryption keys and credential identification data. Customers get the benefit of Common Criteria-certified security without being locked into a single card source. Initially, Identiv will be releasing the OACF specification publicly while the source code will available on request. The code will include a simple tool for reading and writing uTrust TS-compatible cards. All code will be shared via GitHub.
Benefits of open ecosystem
“Identiv believes an open ecosystem benefits everyone from customers to vendors. We’re releasing the OACF specification and uTrust TS Card source code under the Apache License,” said Matthew Herscovitch, Identiv General Manager, Access Readers and Credentials. “We’re really excited about this release and we welcome contributions ? if you develop applications with our code, we’d love to see what you do.”
Visit the Identiv website to find out more about Identiv’s uTrust TS Cards or to place an order. The OACF specification is available on GitHub. Identiv’s code library can be used to interact and program DESFire EV1 and DESFire EV2 cards. Though the company has implemented a subset of the commands available on DESFire cards, the code may be easily extended to support additional commands and Identiv will accept pull requests.
