Mifare 4K
1:MIFARE is the NXP Semiconductors-owned trademark, and it is considered one of the most successful contactless technologies in the world. With the MIFARE proprietary technologies are fully equipped in contactless payment industry, the MIFARE 4k cards are reported the most widely used contactless smartcard technology for smart card transactions. Since launching the MIFARE 4k card, more than 500 million smart card chips and 5 million reader modules were sold. The beauty of the card is that the interface is an open platform for system developers, which implies that applications could be built under the common industry norm.
MIFARE 4k interface platform consists of a few product lines, and the MIFARE 4k belongs to the MIFARE Classic family. The MIFARE 4k are fundamentally used for storing memories, yet a simple security mechanism divides the memories into segments. Therefore, this product family is ideal for high volume transactions like transport ticketing, time attendance solutions, car parking and loyalty programs.
In the year 2008, a Japanese high-end Supermarket chain in Hong Kong has decided to adopt MIFARE 4k card with a contactless smart card readers for its customer loyalty program. The chain store is one of the largest companies of its kind in Hong Kong. It mainly sells gourmet items and groceries from across Europe and Asia. In this loyalty program, customers involved earn bonus points on their cards for every purchase they make and redeem them for cash coupons every quarter and every year. The bonus points can even be redeemed as free parking, free delivery and free magazines. Cardholder can store money into their card accounts and make cash-free purchases with additional rebate benefits. In other words, the more the cardholders purchase; the more benefits in return. In that case, MIFARE 4k is applicable with the applications thus helpful for high volume transactions.
2 Mifare 4K Classic Memory Architecture
A Mifare 4K Classic memory is divided as follows:
4096 bytes of EEPROM divided into 2 main areas:
An area of 32 Sectors of 64 bytes (4 blocks) each (zone A)
An area of 8 Sectors of 256 bytes (16 blocks) each (zone B)
Within zone A:
16 bytes are reserved for manufacturer data
512 bytes are reserved for keys and access control settings
1520 bytes are available for general storage of user data
Within zone B:
128 bytes are reserved for keys and access control settings
1920 bytes are available for general storage of user data
3:Mifare 4K Classic Security Provisions
The platform provides the following security-related features:
A unique 4-byte manufacture’s serial number (MID).
A pair of 6-byte keys controlling access to each Sector of memory.
Within each Sector of zone A, access control flags controlling the allowed operations on each set of three 16-byte Blocks.
Within each Sector of zone B, access control flags controlling the allowed operations on each set of fifteen 16-byte Blocks.
Mutual 3-pass authentication between media and reader (to ISO/IEC 9798-2).
CRYPTO1 stream-cipher for the air interface (proprietary to Philips).
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