Performance Variation in Host-Based Card Emulation Compared to a Hardware Security Element

Assad Umar; Keith Mayes; Konstantinos Markantonakis

doi:10.1109/MOBISECSERV.2015.7072872

Performance Variation in Host-Based Card Emulation Compared to a Hardware Security Element

Assad Umar, Keith Mayes, Konstantinos Markantonakis

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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Abstract

Traditionally, card emulation mode in Near Field Communication devices makes use of a hardware Secure Element (SE) as a secure storage and execution environment for applications. However, a different way of card emulation that bypasses the SE has emerged, referred to as Host-based Card Emulation (HCE). HCE relies on the phone CPU for processing power, sharing it with other running processes. This produces variable readings in terms of response times from the phone. This paper investigates this variability in HCE implementation as compared to an SE implementation. We also discuss how our findings may call into question the use of HCE in time critical scenarios

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2015 First Conference on Mobile and Secure Services (MOBISECSERV)
Publisher	IEEE
Pages	1-6
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-4799-7428-3
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4799-7429-0
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/MOBISECSERV.2015.7072872
Publication status	Published - 20 Feb 2015

Keywords

Emulation, Smart phones, Protocols, Testing, Cryptography, Hardware, Smart cards

Access to Document

10.1109/MOBISECSERV.2015.7072872

edas.final-1570071905 (1)Accepted author manuscript, 112 KB

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7072872/

Cite this

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abstract = "Traditionally, card emulation mode in Near Field Communication devices makes use of a hardware Secure Element (SE) as a secure storage and execution environment for applications. However, a different way of card emulation that bypasses the SE has emerged, referred to as Host-based Card Emulation (HCE). HCE relies on the phone CPU for processing power, sharing it with other running processes. This produces variable readings in terms of response times from the phone. This paper investigates this variability in HCE implementation as compared to an SE implementation. We also discuss how our findings may call into question the use of HCE in time critical scenarios",

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AU - Mayes, Keith

AU - Markantonakis, Konstantinos

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N2 - Traditionally, card emulation mode in Near Field Communication devices makes use of a hardware Secure Element (SE) as a secure storage and execution environment for applications. However, a different way of card emulation that bypasses the SE has emerged, referred to as Host-based Card Emulation (HCE). HCE relies on the phone CPU for processing power, sharing it with other running processes. This produces variable readings in terms of response times from the phone. This paper investigates this variability in HCE implementation as compared to an SE implementation. We also discuss how our findings may call into question the use of HCE in time critical scenarios

AB - Traditionally, card emulation mode in Near Field Communication devices makes use of a hardware Secure Element (SE) as a secure storage and execution environment for applications. However, a different way of card emulation that bypasses the SE has emerged, referred to as Host-based Card Emulation (HCE). HCE relies on the phone CPU for processing power, sharing it with other running processes. This produces variable readings in terms of response times from the phone. This paper investigates this variability in HCE implementation as compared to an SE implementation. We also discuss how our findings may call into question the use of HCE in time critical scenarios

KW - Emulation, Smart phones, Protocols, Testing, Cryptography, Hardware, Smart cards

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