NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) announced its new MIFARE DESFire EV3 IC that ushers in next-generation performance, advanced security and seamless integration of mobile services for a new era of security and connectivity in smart city services. As the third evolution of NXP’s proven contactless MIFARE DESFire portfolio, the latest IC is backwards compatible and offers enhanced performance with a greater operating distance and improved transaction speed. In combination with its advanced security features, the new IC delivers faster, more secure transactions that are truly contactless, such as paying for parking, accessing offices or campuses and using other essential city services—all touch-free.
With proven success over the past 25 years, NXP’s MIFARE product portfolio is at the heart of smart city installations worldwide. The MIFARE DESFire EV3 IC builds upon the portfolio’s heritage of powering mass transit ticketing by also delivering the next level of convenience for end users and reliability for service providers. NXP’s IC provides multi-application support and delivers a wide array of enhanced features that allows transit agencies, access control solution providers, and system integrators to collaborate on new business models and scale their services.
“We are committed to provide our riders with secure, reliable and flexible transport ticketing solutions,” said Barry Dorgan, Head of Ticketing Systems at the Irish National Transport Authority. “By using NXP’s proven MIFARE DESFire products, we can continue to support our riders with a seamless transport experience that is both safe and convenient.”
Raising the Bar with Advanced Security
An extensive set of security features in the MIFARE DESFire EV3 IC provide more ways to protect data and help ensure privacy. The IC hardware and software are certified to Common Criteria EAL 5+, and the IC supports a broad choice of open crypto algorithms. A card generated MAC helps to securely authenticate transactions, and a new Transaction Timer feature helps mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks so it’s harder for an attacker to interfere with the transaction. Additionally, its new Secure Unique NFC (SUN) messaging feature offers a more secure method for maintaining data confidentiality and integrity. Each time a card, phone or ticket is tapped with the SUN featured enabled, a tap-unique authentication message and crypto-secure URL are generated that can be sent to a server for verification, which makes taps unclonable.
