| By :
William Gabriel
Identity theft is a serious concern these days. That's why it's important to have secure identification cards in order to ensure that your personal information is not compromised. This is the reason why companies like HID are coming up with new technologies to amp up the security on their access cards. A single card can now carry multiple applications. Old HID access cards can also be re-badged. If you have an old HID access card that you feel no longer provides an adequate amount of security, you might want to look into migrating or upgrading your new card. HID promises that it will guide old customers through a simple and transparent migration process. Access cards that previously contained high or low frequencies can now be migrated to 13.56 MHz technologies. This will improve the card's security, performance and data integrity It is now also possible to combine multiple applications on a single access card. This card can then be used as a photo-ready identity badge. Another secure option is to include a magnetic strip on your access card. An access card carries a set of ones and zeros (also called binary numbers) that serve to identify the cardholder. In HID's case, the binary numbers can be encoded on a magnetic stripe, a Wiegand type swipe card, a 125 kHz Prox card, MIFARE contactless smart cards and 13.56 MHz iCLASS contactless smart cards. Any of the two technologies can also be combined in order to boost the security of an access card. HID recommends combining the 13.56 MHz iCLASS with either the 125 kHz Prox access card or the magnetic strip. HID defines both the iCLASS and MIFARE access cards as contactless smart cards. This is because when both cards are functioning normally, they add an additional layer of security. Both reader and card are subjected to a complex mathematical process where security keys that are encoded in both the card and the card reader are compared. This process is called manual authentication. It is an added security measure to ensure that identity thieves cannot copy the communication between the access card and the card reader, as the secure information is not repeated to the reader. A person will only be able to enter the door protected by iCLASS and MIFARE cards if the key in the reader and the key in the access card match. Once this is confirmed, the reader will then get the binary data from the card and send it to the controller. If the keys don't match, the mutual authentication process is stopped. The reader will not show any reaction. Makers of ID cards must always be one step ahead of thieves who want to extract and exploit personal information. This means constantly upgrading their technology to ensure that the office remains secure. People who work with sensitive information should always make sure that their access cards are up to date. Ensuring that you access cards are secure will be a further layer of security to safeguard sensitive business matters.
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