CSA CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC 7816-15:05

Abstract

This part of ISO/IEC 7816 specifies an application in a card. This application contains information on cryptographic functionality. This part of ISO/IEC 7816 defines a common syntax and format for the cryptographic information and mechanisms to share this information whenever appropriate. <br>The objectives of this part of ISO/IEC 7816 are to: <br>-&#160;facilitate interoperability among components running on various platforms (platform neutral); <br>-&#160;enable applications in the outside world to take advantage of products and components from multiple manufacturers (vendor neutral); <br>-&#160;enable the use of advances in technology without rewriting application-level software (application neutral); and <br>-&#160;maintain consistency with existing, related standards while expanding upon them only where necessary and practical. <br>It supports the following capabilities: <br>-&#160;storage of multiple instances of cryptographic information in a card; <br>- use of the cryptographic information; <br>-&#160;retrieval of the cryptographic information, a key factor for this is the notion of "Directory Files", which provides a layer of indirection between objects on the card and the actual format of these objects; <br>-&#160;cross-referencing of the cryptographic information with DOs defined in other parts of ISO/IEC 7816 when appropriate; &#63719; different authentication mechanisms; and <br>-&#160;multiple cryptographic algorithms (the suitability of these is outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 7816). <br>This part of ISO/IEC 7816 does not cover the internal implementation within the card and/or the outside world. It shall not be mandatory for implementations complying with this International Standard to support all options described. <br>In case of discrepancies between ASN.1 definitions in the body of the text and the module in Annex A, Annex A takes precedence.