Press Releases

Infineon, TrustSEC debut BIO-SLCOS to deliver secured, open platform for advanced smart card applications

February 21, 2023

Posted by: Shriya Raban

In cooperation with Infineon Technologies AG, TrustSEC, a provider of information security and smart cards, have launched its new advanced smart cards operating system (OS) BIO-SLCOS. The OS uses Infineon’s latest high-performance SLC38 Secure Element to provide a secured and open platform that combines the best in security, flexibility, and hardware independence to meet the comfort, performance and security requirements of the global smart card market. The solution is ideally suited for government identification, payment, ticketing and access applications, as well as for application providers looking to enhance their biometric solution in terms of security, performance and functionality.

While demand for organic smart cards in crypto wallets is currently high, a study by ABI Research expects, in an optimistic scenario, that up to 140 million biometric payment sensor cards to be issued in 2025 fulfilling consumer demand for more convenient and secured biometric authentication in personal payment transactions. In daily life, biometric card holders verify their identity simply by placing a finger on the card’s sensor and tapping the card at the terminal. TrustSEC is prepared to meet the growing demand for biometric smart cards, especially in the payments sector.

“We are committed to improve our operating system continuously by porting it to the most powerful and promising chips from our partner Infineon. This allows us to offer our customers turnkey, market-leading solutions,” says Magdy Sharawy, CEO of TrustSEC.

“Our broad and rapidly growing portfolio demonstrates Infineon’s leading role in shaping the market for secure elements and smart cards,” says Franck Ferrandino, senior marketing director, connected secure systems at Infineon “Collaborating with partners, and TrustSEC in particular, has become essential to meet the new white label requirements for operating systems driven by issuers and service providers who prefer standardised payment applications based on alternative, modern smart card operating systems. This is why Infineon has selected TrustSEC’s BIO-SLCOS for the latest chipsets.”

BIO-SLCOS is a smart card operating system that represents the latest technology for smart cards. It combines security, flexibility, and hardware independence on one platform. The new BIO-SLCOS enables application providers to utilise the latest evolution of Infineon’s SLC family of secure elements by using BIO-SLCOS with the capability to add another security layer for fingerprint authentication. As a result, biometric authentication can be performed entirely within Infineon’s newly approved SLC38 Secure Element.

The OS solution is based on Infineon’s SLC38 hardware and provides data integrity which is built on sophisticated security features tested by independent labs. In addition to managing file systems and I/O, the operating system also interacts with various applications. All products in the SLC family are rated with the highest security certification CC EAL 6+.

In addition to supporting contact, contactless, dual and USB interfaces, BIO-SLCOS can be preloaded or programmed with fixed applications or enable application uploading after using the card manager module. Smart cards with BIO-SLCOS can also be used to run multiple applications simultaneously. Furthermore, the solution can activate the card based on the bio information provided or occasionally authenticate transactions while the card is active.

Comment on this article below or via Twitter @IoTGN