Integrated circuit cards (ICC) or smart cards are credit-card sized plastic cards embedded with a memory chip for data storage and optionally a microprocessor to provide processing capabilities. Smart cards which provide only data storage capabilities are known as memory based smart cards; while smart cards which also have processing capabilities are known as microprocessor based smart cards. A microprocessor based smart card executes a software component such as an operating system and hence complex logic and algorithms can be built into it. In this document, the term “smart card” shall be used to refer implicitly to a microprocessor based smart card. The interaction with a smart card is carried out using a specialized hardware called an interface device (IFD) or a smart card reader as a more commonly used name. A smart card does not have its own power supply and needs an external power source to power it up. This external power is supplied by the smart card reader. The communication between a smart card and a reader can occur either in contact mode or in contact less mode. In contact mode, the contact card is inserted into the reader with a mating contact and the electric circuit completed due to this physical contact is used to power up the card. In contact less mode, the contact less card is placed in the RFID field of the reader which is then used to power up the card. Smart cards are small and easy to handle devices which make them very usable in everyday applications.

Security is a major concern in many everyday applications like e-Commerce etc. Most of these applications require secure and confidential data exchange, mechanisms to detect tampering/modification of data, verification of origin integrity etc. Various cryptographic mechanisms are required to establish a secure trusted environment or to operate securely in a non-trusted medium. These requirements can be addressed by use of either symmetric-key based or asymmetric-key based cryptographic techniques. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a framework which uses the capabilities of performing asymmetric key cryptography, also known as public key cryptography (PKC). PKC involves a pair of cryptographic keys called private and public keys.