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The Gemalto .NET smart card is natively supported in Windows Vista and works as a seamless companion to the Microsoft .NET environment and service-oriented architectures. It runs a streamlined version of the .NET Framework to provide customizable two-factor authentication, full cryptographic capabilities and support for on-card applications and services seamlessly within the Windows® environment. Now, organizations can easily leverage Gemalto's advanced smart card technology to secure their networks from end to end while dramatically reducing implementation costs and complexity.

.NET Detailed Description

By extending the Microsoft .NET programming model to the smart card, this innovative new Gemalto product offers businesses and application developers a rich feature set including managed memory, strong security, and language independence.

  • Strong, two-factor authentication; aligned with Microsoft’s Crypto Next Generation architecture; plug-in available in Windows updates or natively in Windows Vista
  • Rich development environment; plug-in for Visual Studio .NET
  • .NET compatible; language independent
  • 32-bit architecture, field-updatable OS; adherence to industry standards
  • Support for future technologies such as Microsoft’s InfoCard

The combination of the .NET model and the smart card means that the card performs well as a peer computing device, maintains consistent, strong security with applications both on- and off-card, and leads the way to better integrated smart-card applications and services.

The smart card interacts easily with host applications without the need for complicated host software, and is fully integrated with the Windows environment.

For all these reasons and more, the Gemalto .NET smart card has been chosen as Microsoft’s worldwide corporate badge for logical and physical access.

Even as personalized Internet services become more common, security, privacy and confidentiality remain issues for most consumers. Having more secure authentication is certainly important and is a good initial step to protect end users, but is still not enough.

Smart cards enabled with secure web services provide more control for the user when interacting with open networks. The smart card becomes an individual personal web server interacting with the digital world

Security

Secure implementation plugged into Microsoft’s cryptographic architecture. The .NET smart card is enabled through Microsoft’s Base Smart Card Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP). This not only ensures security through strong authentication, but also supports easier, more cost-effective deployments by exploiting the CSP architecture.

Gemalto’s Card Module is available in the latest Windows updates, and card support is included in Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system.

Seamless access to cryptographic services. Developers can easily modify existing solutions that use .NET cryptographic services to take advantage of the enhanced security and customization options of smart cards. The smart card supports Microsoft’s next-generation CSP in the Windows Vista operating system so that businesses and developers can always employ the latest in cryptographic technology.

Software Development

Application development/integration with Visual Studio .NET. Visual Studio .NET enhancements pave the way for integrating smart cards into solutions that are based on web services. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is plug-in to Visual Studio .NET is available for .NET for quick-and-easy access to the rich development environments of both Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Smart Card Framework SDK.

Multiple languages and applications. The Common Language Infrastructure implemented in the .NET card allows smart card applications to be integrated in .NET solutions developed in any language. This means developers can choose an application language based on the best business case for the product rather than some arbitrary limitation.

.NET Smart Card Framework. A subset of the .NET Framework class libraries includes all the functions necessary to support a programming model consistent with that of the full .NET framework. Because the .NET concepts are consistently applied on the smart card, developers can move quickly from .NET programming to .NET smart card development without a long learning curve.

Fast and efficient garbage collection..NET smart card technology uses garbage collection algorithms designed specially for smart cards, and provides transparent memory allocation with fast garbage collection. This means the smart card can process data and use memory more effectively for more and better services on the card.

Business Solution for Today and Tomorrow

Unified communications between smart card and host. Consistent, reliable communication is enabled through the .NET Remoting communication mechanism. This feature can support standard protocols such as XML, SOAP, and HTTP, as well as traditional 7816-4 protocol APDU commands.

Powerful transaction system..NET smart card technology provides a transaction system that allows arbitrarily nested transactions, with transaction lengths limited only by the available card memory.

Reusable components and convenient field updates. The .NET smart card enables reusable components to focus on core business services, leveraging Microsoft .NET data exchange standards to eliminate routine but time-consuming, smart-card-specific infrastructure chores. The operating system is updatable in the field for added convenience and reduced maintenance costs.

Current and future technologies. The .NET smart card software has strong support for industry standards, and is conveniently available through Windows updates and the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. Future support is expected to include the Microsoft InfoCard system architecture and the Gemalto Protiva solution line to ensure that state-of-the-art technology is always available.

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