Säkerhetsstandard för ett mjukvarubaserat säkerhetselement

Sammanfattning: Researchers today anticipate that in the near future, the majority of the owners of a smartphone will use it as a wallet, i.e. for contactless payment. The technology that enables contactless payment today is “Near Field Communication” (NFC), which is increasingly embedded in smartphones. Applications like mobile payment between a phone and a terminal use NFC. With Mobile payment the user’s credit and banking information gets saved and it’s extremely important for a user that the saved data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. How should then a user of an NFC equipped device ensure that end-to-end security is strong enough when they use NFC technology? Can user feel safe enough to keep their private documents on the phone without getting “robbed”? NFC uses a security element “Secure Element” (SE) that offers the user safety for their mobile purchases but also in other applications such as transportation tickets. The security element comes in three forms: SD card based, SIM card based or embedded in the smartphone. Over time, the technology behind the secure element is further developed and a new phenomenon has emerged, a new type of secure element. The new technology is an application based secure element: “Software Emulation Card” (Soft-SE), which offers security without a physical SE This thesis will deal with the Secure Element’s area to see if the Soft-SE are so confident that we can count it as an option when we do our mobile purchases in the store. A number of threats and attacks that an SE or generally an NFC device can be exposed to will be mentioned and some will also be described and some possible threats and attacks against Soft-SE. In addition, a few pros and cons of applying Soft-SE will be discussed. The analysis is based on how a user can get more out of the existing SE instead of applying the Soft-SE. Based on the facts, pros and cons, and the analysis that has been treated, it has been concluded that the Soft-SE is not a more secure alternative than the SE that is already used by NFC phones. Since Soft-SE is still new, it has not yet developed to protect themselves against the possible attacks that they may be exposed to. It is strongly recommended that users of Google Wallet adhere to the Secure Element that the smartphone use instead of applying Soft-SE.