MIFARE DESFire EV3 Chip From NXP
NXP’s contactless MIFARE DESFire EV3 IC is a powerful platform that enables secure smart city applications. It is Common Criteria EAL5+ security certified and features the newest method to maintain data integrity and privacy.
It also has a number of advanced security features like AES128 encryption, a secure channel to protect against man-in-the-middle attacks and a random UID for user privacy.
Backward compatibility
The MIFARE DESFire EV3 contactless IC from NXP is the latest evolution of its well-known and proven contactless platform. It offers enhanced performance with a higher operating distance and transaction speed compared to its predecessors. It features a high level of security using a 3DES / AES hardware cryptographic engine for confidentiality and integrity protection of transmission data. It also supports a new feature called the Transaction Timer that helps protect against Man-in-the-Middle attacks and delays to complete a transaction.
The DESFire EV3 chip is designed to enable a variety of Smart City applications smart card manufacturer such as public transportation, parking, access control, ticketing and cashless vending on one card. It combines multiple services into a single platform to offer better user experience and cost efficiency for operators and citizens. Its multi-application support also allows for flexibility when designing new business models. It is backward compatible to MIFARE DESFire EV2, EV1 and MIFARE DESFire D40 in operation mode, as well as supporting legacy iCLASS SE and multiCLASS readers that rely on static UID.
The EV3 chip is Common Criteria EAL 5+ certified, the same certification demanded of chip products used in financial cards or electronic passports. Moreover, a random unique identifier (UID) and relay protection are built in the EV3 chip to ensure privacy is protected. The EV3 chipset also supports HID’s High Security profile, which includes additional layers of security like on-chip backup management system, mutual three-pass authentication and AES128 encryption for further protection.
Enhanced performance
The new MIFARE DESFire EV3 IC ushers in next-generation performance, advanced security and seamless integration of mobile services for a whole new era of smart city services. It builds upon the portfolio’s heritage of powering mass transit ticketing while also bringing the next level of convenience for end users and reliability for service providers.
The EV3 IC can read data up to 1.5 times faster than the older MIFARE DESFire EV2 chip and is up to three times more efficient than MIFARE DESFire EV1 in terms of transaction speed. It also supports a higher number of applications on the card, while maintaining the same memory size. This makes it easy for system operators to upgrade their infrastructures and enable a more streamlined experience for users.
HID Global is proud to offer a full suite of credentials that can be used with the MIFARE DESFire EV3 reader technology. Our DESFire EV3 + iCLASS cards are designed to give security systems owners the flexibility they need to address the many different uses for contactless technologies.
In addition to offering enhanced performance, the DESFire EV3+iCLASS cards are backed by an on-chip backup management system that ensures the safety of user data and application information. The EV3+iCLASS card also has an integrated proximity reader, enabling the card to function as both an access control credential and a mobile phone-like contactless smart card for payments and other use cases.
Enhanced security
The DESFire chip from NXP is the top of the range when it comes to security and is one of the most secure radio-frequency chips available. It is used in a wide variety of applications including access control (even military environments), loyalty and micropayments as well as public and private transport.
The new EV3 IC offers enhanced performance, improved security and seamless integration of mobile services for a truly contactless experience. This is achieved through a larger operating distance, faster transaction speed and a powerful security engine certified to Common Criteria EAL5+, providing protection against Man-in-the-Middle attacks, proximity control and delay attacks.
This is reinforced by a powerful security model based on HID’s layered approach to identity data protection. This uses a unique on-chip backup management system, mutual three-pass authentication and diversified security keys to protect card information from attack. This desfire ev3 is combined with a powerful EV3 SIO application which supports Random UID support, to ensure that cards do not openly share their personal ID and the identity of their users to the outside world.
EV3 SIO can also be used to deploy smart city services on smartphones and NFC wearables using NXP’s MIFARE 2GO cloud service. This manages digitized credentials based on MIFARE products and enables contactless payments or access to features on NFC-enabled smartphones, tablets or wearables.
Seamless integration of mobile services
The new MIFARE DESFire EV3 IC ushers in next-generation performance, advanced security and seamless integration of mobile services for the new era of secure and connected Smart City services. It is the third evolution of NXP’s mature contactless MIFARE DESFire portfolio and provides enhanced performance with greater operating distance and transaction speed, enabling more efficient, touch-free operations such as paying for parking, accessing offices or campuses and using other essential city services.
The EV3 solution is also more versatile than its predecessors. It offers the ability to store more applications on a single card with up to 256 kB of memory. This allows for more flexible application programming as well as implementing closed-loop e-payment applications or local loyalty programs. In addition, a number of security features such as a random UID and proximity check help to mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks.
As a result, the EV3 chip is the perfect choice for university campus environments where multiple applications are needed to provide users with more convenience such as cashless vending, cafeteria services and transportation or tracking class attendance with multiple file access rights. For universities already running MIFARE Classic based systems, the migration to DESFire EV3 is seamless thanks to backward compatibility with MIFARE Classic and a smooth upgrade path to DESFire EV2. For new applications such as student IDs, the EV3 solution also enables a simple implementation by offering an embedded secure element in addition to MIFARE Classic.