Banking Production Centre (BPC), a leading systems integrator and EFT solutions provider, and Eracom Technologies, a developer and global supplier of cryptographic technologies, have announced the integration of BPC's SmartVista Front-End and SmartVista Back-Office software solutions with Eracom Technologies' Hardware Security Module (HSM); ProtectHost White.
Organizations that require an end-to-end suite of products for card payment processing, or specific components of the suite, to be coupled with the ultimate security delivered by a HSM, can now achieve this in a pre-integrated and pre-tested bundle. The seamless integration between the SmartVista transaction processing and card management suite and the Eracom Technologies ProtectHost White EFT and Card Issuance HSM will considerably reduce integration and deployment pain for SmartVista Clients.
The modular design and open architecture of the SmartVista Suite bring together a set of component solutions with SmartVista Processing as the functional core. Together they make up an end-to-end suite of products addressing every aspect of the payment lifecycle. This includes transaction switching and processing, card issuance and acquiring, advanced merchant management, to the full support of EMV-compliant multi-application smart cards, e-Commerce, Internet banking and mobile banking.
The integration of the ProtectHost White HSM delivers the necessary PIN encryption and verification within the transaction processing functionality provided by SmartVista. This is in addition to card validation, message authentication and key management.
Issuer host systems utilizing SmartVista products for card issuance will benefit from the ProtectHost White's seamless ability to perform rapid online Application Cryptogram authorization (ARQC/ARPC processing), secure messaging for card application update and post-issuance scripting, plus the authentication of EMV-card based two-factor Chip Authentication Program (CAP) scheme transactions.
ProtectHost White's certification will also facilitate the ability for existing and prospective BPC clients to meet VISA, Mastercard/Europay, AMEX and JCB payment system standards, às well as ISO 9564 and ISO 13491 for tamper resistance and physical security.
In addition, Card Issuers utilizing SmartVista for the facilitation of card production, data preparation, card personalization and management of post issuance activities will be able to seamlessly integrate ProtectHost White to simultaneously perform magnetic stripe, smart card and EMV issuance security functions. The generation of cryptographic keys and data to be written to the card can be performed within the protected confines of an HSM, which will also protect the entire distribution path of the sensitive information from the issuing site to inside the individual card.
Trust, robustness and security is critical to SmartVista's competent provision of service, like any payment and card issuance system. Security lies at the heart of a trusted payment and issuance infrastructure, most effectively delivered by cryptography to provide data confidentiality, message authentication and integrity, plus the establishment of identity and trust. However, cryptography relies on the use of keys and failure to protect and manage cryptographic keys risks shattering the entire security of the payment or card issuance system.
The ProtectHost White HSM delivers the highest level of physical and logical protection to cryptographic keys preventing unauthorized access to highly sensitive key information. Tamper resistant secure casing, including physical key locks, battery backed secure key storage and automatic cryptographic key erasure upon tamper detection, ensures the maximum level of secrecy and integrity of keys and sensitive data.
"Eracom Technologies' ProtectHost White HSM not only prevents unauthorized access to highly sensitive key information, it also contributes toward the increase in overall processing performance of SmartVista system," states Ansgar Dodt, COO of Eracom Technologies EMEA. "The tamper-resistant hardware environment of the HSM isolates these functions from host systems delivering physical and logical protection to the cryptographic keys and processing within the SmartVista solution. Additionally, it accelerates the systems processing performance by offloading the CPU intensive symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic processing to dedicated crypto-processors within the HSM. This thereby removes performance bottlenecks enabling real-time processing transactions within the SmartVista Suite."