Swipe cart/Smart card access to Computer

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Swipe cart/Smart card access to Computer

Aaroona

3196 posts

Uber Geek

#129100 3-Sep-2013 20:14

Our 'Security' team is on a rampage at the moment, causing all sorts of strife, throwing the words 'best practice' and 'security risk' around like they're going out of fashion.

I can see where they are heading and our PC's are next. What I want to know is if there is a good card access/Smart card access system that we could implement on a corporate scale?

Being a corporate, we use Active Directory extensively, so being able to authenticate there is an absolute must. I have seen the odd smart card system around, but haven't looked into it much myself.

I believe WINZ use a smart card system, and plug their cards directly into their keyboards.

Environment:

XP mostly, but rolling out Win7 shortly.

Our IT/ITS Department is on Windows 7 and will likely be the first people, 'Pilots' if you will, of the given product.

nathan

5695 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#889220 3-Sep-2013 20:17

Investigate virtual smartcards in Windows 8 which can easily be integrated into Active Directory

also fingerprint biometrics are built into Window 8.1

or what OSes do you need to support

Aaroona

3196 posts

Uber Geek

#889222 3-Sep-2013 20:17

nathan: Investigate virtual smartcards in Windows 8 which can easily be integrated into Active Directory

also fingerprint biometrics are built into Window 8.1

or what OSes do you need to support

Sorry I should have mentioned.

At the moment we are still on XP, but are rolling out Windows 7 very shortly.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#889223 3-Sep-2013 20:20

Even WinXP Pro can support AD-integrated smartcards. You can even get keyboards with smartcard integration, and you can just slot the card in to log in (or configure them with card + pin/pass).

nathan

5695 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#889224 3-Sep-2013 20:23

Indeed, you'll have to invest in physical smartcards

you can even get USB card readers that let you store the certs on a SIM so you don't need card readers in everything

do you have a budget or number of users?

jonherries

1396 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#889245 3-Sep-2013 20:49

And then you you don't need to worry about phishing/remembering/losing passwords, just stealing/remembering/losing cards...

Jon

Aaroona

3196 posts

Uber Geek

#889247 3-Sep-2013 20:49

Currently just investigating the options, really.

Lets say for arguments sake and testing purposes, ~100 employees straight off the bat - but if we were to expand it to the whole company, we could potentially be talking about thousands.

I know they used to have a really POS device here, that was literally a proximity sensor - you walk to your workstation and it unlocked your PC, you walked away, it would lock again. But these devices failed miserably. (before my time)