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October 17, 1997, Section:

RSA Makes World Safe For Smart Cards

By Charlotte Dunlap

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- RSA Data Security, formalizing its foray into the smart-card arena, announced Thursday integration of its 1,024-bit encryption technology with Gemplus' smart card. RSA executives told CRN Online that the company has signed integration deals with practically all of the dozen or so smart-card vendors in the industry.

RSA outlined its plan to integrate its technology with Gemplus' GPK4000 smart card. Gemplus' smart card includes a cryptographic coprocessor, onboard keys generation, electronic payment capabilities, and 1,024-bit RSA-based digital signature at sub-second speed and 4 kilobytes of application memory.

Smart cards or tokens can be used, in addition to a user password, to ensure security precautions when delivering sensitive E-mail and data communications across IP networks. Passwords alone do not guard against Trojan Horse applications, which are planted on a user's computer to sniff out private information such as passwords.

"This is a major step forward in the industry. Most security protocols center around RSA 1,024- bit encryption as a means by which users are authenticated and symmetric keys are exchanged," said Scott Schnell, vice president of marketing. "Now we have a cryptographic token that matches perfectly with RSA encryption used in most popular Internet standards for E-mail and Web browsing."

Last month, RSA and Visa International announced plans to conduct a market trial of RSA public-key-encrypted smart cards in the United Kingdom and Japan. The trial will use a Philips Semiconductors P83C858 cryptocontroller chip with embedded RSA public-key cryptography.