According to Idesco, the importance of the newest RFID security technologies in access control grows more obvious every month. For example, the encryption employed by Mifare’s Desfire is fully capable of defeating the most robust efforts to hack, let alone clone its transponders.

Certainly an access control sytem can be easily – and profoundly – enhanced by deploying Desfire. But it is possible to still enhance further the system’s security. Idesco’s Aesco security solution, with AES-encrypted Desfire readers, allows the user to extend the AES encryption of transponder data all the way upstream to the system’s controller.

Where might such an internal security solution be worth considering? Idesco maintains that Many systems today permit secured card data to be translated and forwarded by readers on to the reader’s controller without encryption. This occurs because readers must convert user data to the format their controllers understand, e.g. Wiegand format. Unfortunately, this creates a potential security risk, because unprotected data in Wiegand format can be externally detected and read using existing eavesdropping methods.

Fortunately, AESCO and Idesco’s newest generation AES-encrypted readers can be cost-effectively and readily embedded into an old Mifare system. Indeed, Aesco gives the user three different ways to deploy it: piggy-back a separate Aesco module onto the controller, update your system’s controller(s) with Idesco’s RS-485 AES protocol, or replace the system controller(s) with Idesco’s Badicio controller embedded with the decryption protocol.

Aesco’s package also includes a user-friendly encoding station for migrating the existing population of identities up into Desfire security. This encoding station reads IDs from the system’s legacy technology then rapidly creates new high security transponders that will still be fully-compatible with the existing system. The result is that the population of user IDs will be protected with contactless security via AES encryption.