Wireless Communications Security

4 Smartcards and Secure Elements

4.1 Overview

This chapter presents key technologies related to smartcards and SEs, especially as they relate to the wireless systems. First, an introduction discusses why smartcards are still a useful and perhaps even indispensable anchor for security in the era of IoT. Nevertheless, the new environment may require updating of the systems and ways of utilization of the SEs. In fact, both the IoT – with its vast amount of M2M connected devices – and the consumer markets are starting to require physically much smaller SEs than we have typically seen to date in the form of traditional SIM cards. As a result of consumers’ small‐sized wearable devices and huge amounts of low‐cost M2M equipment all over the field, the principles for the subscription management may see a radical evolution from the traditional SIM OTA methods, which typically have been vendor‐specific.

The industry requires wider interoperability in order to ensure fluent and global mobility from which one example is the automotive environment; once the car has been built, it may end up in any country. So, if the respective car‐embedded communications system for cellular networks contains an initial subscription, it should be possible to change it to any operator’s system – not only for the initial activation but also for several changes during the lifetime of the communications equipment. These modifications need up‐to‐date international standards as well as new types of SIM ...