An efficient authentication scheme for contactless smartcards using elliptic curve cryptography

Nowadays the protection of information against unauthorized disclosure, transfer, modification, or destruction, whether accidental or intentional, is a very important issue that concerns the information society. The scope of this paper is to develop a Contactless Smartcard protocol, which will be able operate securely and effectively, under a variety of attack methods. The system implements a novel mutual authentication procedure between a Contactless Reader and a Smartcard, calculates securely the corresponding parameters, and protects the system against malicious attacks. The system can be used in a wide spectrum of applications that require simplicity, ease of use, long life, low cost and portability. Suitable applications could be, Electronic Payments, Public Transport Electronic Fare, Highway toll payments, Medical Applications, and Access Control.