Executive Director's Letter

Dear members and friends of the Alliance,

I hope everyone had a joyful and healthy start to the New Year. January is always a big transition month for many people in the smart card industry. New business plans are in effect, new programs are launched, and much of the backlog of activity that gets put off around the holidays suddenly takes on a sense of urgency. That certainly is the case here at the Alliance this month.

One large group of people that did not have the luxury of putting things off over the holidays were the dedicated men and women committed to the government smart card industry who, along with NIST, are working on the new FIPS 201 and accompanying SP 800-73 documentation. These new federal standards were called for by the HSPD-12 presidential directive requiring tamper-resistant, machine-readable identity credentials for all government employees. Representatives from the government's Interagency Advisory Board (IAB), their contractors, and many vendors worked feverishly through the month to beat the December 23 deadline for public comments on FIPS 201 PIV parts 1 and 2, and to complete the IAB's body of work on the SP 800-73 document for submission to NIST on January 19. NIST reported that they received more than 1900 comments during the public comment period. Their staff went to work immediately to review these suggestions and objections to previous drafts for the final internal review and release of FIPS 201 that will occur on February 27. The separate, but important, SP 800-73 technical publication will be released separately around February 15 for public comment after the IAB report is reviewed and digested into the next draft. Accompanying the release of FIPS 201 will be the Government Identity Management Handbook, a guidance manual developed by FICC with support from the Smart Card Alliance. Final release of the technical publication and the manual will be sometime in March.

Member Profile

Smart Card Talk spoke with Robert Schneider , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Director of SCM Microsystems. Mr. Schneider founded SCM in May 1990 and has served as an officer and director of the company since that time. He is actively involved with several standards organizations in the PC, security and digital television industries. Before founding SCM, he worked at Intel Corporation Europe for over ten years, where he held a variety of sales and marketing positions. He holds a degree in engineering from HTBL Salzburg and a BA degree from the Akademie for Business Administration in Ueberlingen.

1. What are SCM Microsystems' main business profile and offerings?

Most Alliance members know us for our complete line up of smart card reader technology used for secure access to PCs and networks. We are the global market leader in this space, and the U.S. market leader as well. One of our achievements is that SCM has shipped more than two million smart card readers to several departments and agencies including Defense, Justice, Treasury, Interior and Veterans Affairs.

The normal business model for SCM is to work with OEMs and large system integrators, who often private label our equipment. Many Alliance members who are themselves technology providers are SCM customers.

We recently added a family of physical access control terminals to our product line, positioned to work with biometrics and the new class of smart IDs for both the government and private sectors. These access terminals are modular so customers can mix and match features and technologies as they evolve their physical access control systems. They support biometrics and the more robust communications protocols needed with smart ID credentials.

SCM is also the leading supplier of hardware security modules for digital television (DTV). Known as a Conditional Access Module (CAM), these devices plug into an open standards-based set-top box or integrated digital TV set to decrypt television broadcast signals.

In addition, SCM manufactures interface technology for transferring content to and from digital flash media.

Global headquarters for SCM are in Fremont, California, with European headquarters in Ismaning, Germany, north of Munich. SCM Microsystems is publicly traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol "SCMM" and on the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt exchange under the symbol "SMY."

Feature of the Month

Building the Business Case for Smart ID Cards

Many enterprises are currently considering the use of smart cards to support strong authentication for secure logical access. A recent study of U.S. Fortune 500 companies revealed the following:

• All of the companies surveyed (100%) were aware of smart card technology.
• More than 63% of the executives interviewed either have investigated or were investigating smart cards for network security.
• More than 39% of the companies surveyed plan to use smart cards to enhance and strengthen their corporate security systems within the next 3 years.
• A total of 30% of the companies were currently using or testing smart cards within their security systems.

For smart cards to be adopted, the technology investment must be supported by the appropriate business case, which requires consideration of both tangible and intangible benefits.

Smart Card Talk is the monthly electronic newsletter of the world's largest smart card industry organization, providing members with the latest news and information about what's happening within the Smart Card Alliance. If you have news you would like to share, please send it to info@smartcardalliance.org. If you know someone who does not receive this newsletter and would like to be added to the list, please send an email here.

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