Editing Smart card (section)

== Security ==
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Smart cards have been advertised as suitable for personal identification tasks, because they are [[security engineering|engineered]] to be [[tamper resistant]]. The chip usually implements some [[cryptography|cryptographic]] algorithm. There are, however, several methods for recovering some of the algorithm's internal state.

[[Differential power analysis]] involves measuring the precise time and [[electric current]] required for certain encryption or decryption operations. This can deduce the on-chip private key used by public key algorithms such as [[RSA (algorithm)|RSA]]. Some implementations of [[symmetric cipher]]s can be vulnerable to timing or [[power analysis|power attacks]] as well.

Smart cards can be physically disassembled by using acid, abrasives, solvents, or some other technique to obtain unrestricted access to the on-board microprocessor. Although such techniques may involve a risk of permanent damage to the chip, they permit much more detailed information (e.g., [[photomicrograph]]s of encryption hardware) to be extracted.

{{Further|Unlooper}}