Many companies’ mistake is that after investing in smart reader technology, some organizations may look to cut costs by buying cheaper cards and credentials. This is a mistake. A smart reader technology is only as secure as the weakest credential it is allowed to support. Ensuring the security of the entire ecosystem, including cards, is not something that should be cost-dependent.
An access card is programming of security services within an organizational ID card. One of the best-known functions is access control, where, using proximity technologies, a card performs the function of an access key and the terminal that detects it accepts or rejects the request.
Its origin comes from Europe in the early seventies, with a design similar to bank cards, but the difference is that they contained a programmable device. Soon it was possible to increase the chips’ memory, adding services that can be performed by the card. During the eighties, and thanks to the implementation of mobile communication, other services such as authentication and data transmission were developed. Since then, smart card technology has constantly been increasing its memory and processing capabilities; the areas where they are most present are in their uses as payment systems and access control. There are different types of access cards.
- Contact cards. They need to be inserted into the terminal to be recognized and/or authorized. There are two types of a contact cards: synchronous and asynchronous.
- The synchronous card contains only memory functions; they are mainly installed inside cellular phones and are known as their end. The memory chip is also divided into free memory, which has no security functions for the information it contains, and protected memory needs codes and previous steps to access the report.
- The asynchronous access card is a card that has a microprocessor, has the same internal design and size as a credit card, and may have a magnetic stripe on the back. Inside the plastic are electronic elements such as RAM, ROM, and EEROM.
- Contactless access cards are similar to contact access cards; the advantage is that there should be no direct contact between the access key and the terminal, but an approximation. This has several health and hygiene advantages.
- The super-smart card fulfills the same function as my microprocessor cards and includes a battery, a keypad, and an LCD display. In this way, the card functions entirely independently.
- The Mifare card is a type of smart card that uses R faith and radiofrequency technology for access control. They maintain the most economical price in the market, and for that reason, they are the most used worldwide. The minimum distance to be read by a terminal is 10 cm, although larger airports also exist.
Among the benefits of having an access card is that it has a lower cost than conventional magnetic cards, it offers services up to 20 times higher thanks to the multiple configurations available, transactions can be made in different mobile communication environments that cannot be accessed in any other way, and the improvements in security and processing do not include extra costs to the user.