Smart Cards and Biometrics: Your Key to PKI

Dec 11, 1998

Abstract

Schlumberger is one of the largest manufacturers of smartcards: credit card sized plastic cards with imbedded microprocessors. Smartcards are a natural for use as a cryptographic key store. They offer easy portability, a secure filesystem, a convenient form factor and provide the ability to integrate physical security with information security. When combined with a site directory (i.e., LDAP) and PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) the same card that opens the door can provides access to that information or those resources that you are authorized to access with cryptographic processes.
The advent of inexpensive biometric sensors provide a way to achieve a tight binding between the smartcard token and the authorized user.