The News

Inside Contactless and cryptography research sign agreement to license DPA patents

13/08/2009

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., August 13th, 2009 – INSIDE Contactless S.A. (INSIDE) and Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI) today announced an agreement regarding the use of CRI’s patents covering countermeasures to differential power analysis (DPA) and related attacks for INSIDE’s MicroPass® and other secure semiconductor products.

Under the agreement, INSIDE may use CRI's patents as part of the security strategy for its contactless semiconductor products which are used around the world in a variety of form factors – including contactless cards, key fobs, mobile payment bridge products, and NFC secure elements for mobile phones – for use in applications such as contactless payment, loyalty, identification, transit and access control.  To date, INSIDE has delivered more than 100M MicroPass® chips containing operating system and application software for major brands in the financial services industry.   The license also covers third-party software executing on INSIDE’s MicroPass chip products, allowing INSIDE’s customers to develop their own DPA countermeasures without the need for a separate license from CRI.

“Cryptography Research has made pioneering contributions in the area of tamper-resistant semiconductors with its DPA technology and intellectual property portfolio,” said Charles Walton, executive vice president of payments for INSIDE Contactless.  “This agreement allows INSIDE to distribute MicroPass products with DPA countermeasures to our manufacturing customers without their need to distinctly obtain licensing from CRI.”

“Cryptography Research is pleased to have reached this agreement with INSIDE Contactless,” said Kit Rodgers, vice president of business development and licensing for CRI.  “INSIDE is a global leader in advanced, open-standard contactless chip technologies, and this agreement is an important step as we continue to expand our licensing program.”

DPA is a form of attack that involves monitoring the fluctuating electrical power consumption of a target device and then using advanced statistical methods to derive cryptographic keys and other secrets. Strong countermeasures to DPA help protect tamper-resistant chips used in applications such as banking, pay television, mass transit, secure ID, and wireless telecommunications.
Cryptography Research has been awarded a portfolio of approximately 50 patents covering countermeasures to DPA attacks.

About Cryptography Research, Inc.
Cryptography Research, Inc. develops and licenses technology to solve complex security problems. In addition to security evaluation and applied engineering work, the company is actively involved in long-term research and technology licensing in areas including content protection, tamper resistance, network security and financial services. Security systems designed by Cryptography Research engineers protect more than $100 billion of commerce annually for wireless, telecommunications, financial, digital television, entertainment, and Internet industries. For additional information, visit www.cryptography.com.

About INSIDE Contactless, S.A.
INSIDE Contactless is the global leader in open-standard contactless payment and Near Field Communication (NFC) semiconductors and software that power the next generation of payment, transit, identity and access control applications. The company’s intelligent, microprocessor-based platforms offer the flexibility to be embedded in smart cards, mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices, documents, badges and other items to support a wide range of innovative contactless applications and bring new levels of convenience to users. INSIDE has delivered more than 300 million contactless platforms worldwide to customers and partners that include many of the leading payment card and mobile phone manufacturers, systems integrators and financial institutions. With a portfolio of 60 families of patents, including several essential NFC patents, the company has played a leading role in NFC and contactless innovation. INSIDE is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Warsaw, Seoul and Silicon Valley.