Morpho (Safran group) is collaborating with Wincor Nixdorf, the University of Paderborn and Achelos in the "System Integrity in Self-service machines" (SIS) research project undertaken by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The project's objective is to develop solutions that protect cash dispensers and payment terminals against unauthorized access by means of new cryptographic methods.
The SIS project aims to ensure end-to-end system integrity: whenever parts are installed or replaced, the individual components authenticate each other. Any interference or changes can therefore be identified immediately. In addition, two components can communicate with each other securely via the central machine PC.
Security modules based on smart card technology are integrated in automated teller machines to enable mutual authentication. Implementation in smart cards has the advantage that secret key codes used for communication between the ATM's individual components are protected from spying.
One particular focus of the SIS project is the development of new identity-based cryptographic methods that are to be implemented in smart cards. This means that personal or system data, such as a component's serial number, can be used for encryption. The advantage of identity-based cryptography over conventional systems is that it eliminates the additional administrative overhead caused by a public key infrastructure (PKI*), in particular management of key certificates, since existing infrastructure can be used.
*PKI = A system that can issue, distribute and check digital certificates.