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INDUSTRY WATCH
Christian Lackner, Segment Manager Smart
City at NXP Semiconductors
MIFARE PLUS EV1
OFFERS BANKING
GRADE SECURITY AND
ENHANCED USABILITY.
research took several thousand hours and was
done on an on-and-off basis and involved
considerable amounts of trial and error.
“We wanted to find out if it’s possible to
bypass the electronic lock without leaving a
trace,” said Timo Hirvonen, Senior Security
Consultant at F-Secure. “Building a secure
access control system is very difficult
because there are so many things you
need to get right. It was only after that we
thoroughly understood how it was designed
and we were able to identify seemingly
innocuous shortcomings. We creatively
combined these shortcomings to come up
with a method for creating master keys.”
F-Secure notified Assa Abloy of the findings
and has collaborated with the lock maker over
the past year to implement software fixes.
Similarly, ASSA ABLOY Hospitality, is also
complying with stricter security measures for
its own benefit. The company has recently
www.intelligentcio.com
announced an enhancement of its VingCard
RFID electronic locks with the support of NXP
Semiconductors’ MIFARE Plus EV1 smart
card IC. Through this strategic collaboration,
ASSA ABLOY Hospitality is further
strengthening its security protocol with the
addition of a seamless and cost-effective
upgrade path for hoteliers that also provides
heightened security features for hotel staff
and guests.
With the added support of NXP’s MIFARE
Plus EV1, ASSA ABLOY Hospitality’s
electronic locks now offer hotel staff user-
friendly communications tools from the
lock to the staff card for more efficient lock
management and monitoring. Replacing
legacy technology that the locks were
previously utilising, MIFARE Plus EV1 offers
banking grade security and enhanced
usability. The implementation also enables
a smooth migration for hotels with multiple
systems running on the legacy MIFARE
Classic product. The dual operation mode of
MIFARE Plus EV1 enables hotels to update
their infrastructure step-by-step, depending
on their needs.
“ASSA ABLOY Hospitality is using our latest
contactless ICs to further enhance its
solutions,” said Christian Lackner, Segment
Manager Smart City at NXP Semiconductors.
“With this implementation, our two
companies are now working even closer
together to innovate the hotel industry by
maximising keycard security and overall
prope rty technology.”
ASSA ABLOY Hospitality and NXP are also
making their close collaboration more
visible to the market. Future ASSA ABLOY
Hospitality keycards will contain a MIFARE
ingredient branding logo, identifying the
underlying IC product and the partnership
between the two companies. “The joint
branding of the keycards helps hoteliers
identify the appropriate contactless solution
for their systems and illustrates the long-
lasting relationship between the companies,”
added Lackner.
“MIFARE Plus EV1 is the perfect
enhancement for our standard guest cards,”
said Eric Thomsen, General Manager SW
and Credentials at ASSA ABLOY Hospitality.
“This technological enhancement will allow
us to continuously address today’s needs,
while creating an efficient and future-proof
solution that will meet tomorrow’s.” n
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