What is the difference between memory card and smart card in information security?


Memory Card

A memory card is a type of storage device that can store videos, photos, or other data files. It provide a volatile and non-volatile medium to save data from the inserted device. It is also defined as a flash memory. Generally, it is used in devices like phones, digital cameras, laptops, digital camcorders, game consoles, MP3 players, printers, etc.

A memory card is generally used as a primary and portable flash memory in mobile phones, cameras and other portable and handheld devices. PC Cards (PCMCIA) were a predecessor of modern memory cards that were introduced for commercial goals. Besides supporting non-volatile media storage, a memory card also uses solid state media technology, which lowers the chances of mechanical issues, including those discovered in traditional hard drives.

The size of a memory card is fixed and cannot be enhanced. If the memory card is full, consider removing some of the files stored on the memory card. It can consider moving the files to a multiple storage device, or purchasing a memory card with more capacity and restore the memory card with the new card.

Smart Card

A smart card is a card that stores data on a microprocessor or memory chip instead of the magnetic stripe found on ATM and credit cards. A smart card is a secure microcontroller that is generally used for generating, storing and operating on cryptographic keys.

Smart card authentication supports users with smart card devices for the objective of authentication. Users linked their smart card to a host computer. Software on the host computer communicate with the keys material and other secrets saved on the smart card to authenticate the user.

Smart cards are considered a powerful form of authentication because cryptographic keys and other secrets stored on the card are very well secured both physically and logically, and are therefore extremely complex to steal.

The added security supported by the smart card comes at the expense of the user experience, as smart cards required to be physically carried around by the user and inserted into the host computer each time they required to authenticate with it. Users are also defined to host devices that have the card interface software installed.

Smart cards are also expensive to administrate, as they needed software installation on the host device and physical distribution to the users. Smart cards offers computing and business systems the enormous advantage of portable and secure storage of information and value. Concurrently, the integration of smart cards into the system introduces its own security management issues, as person access card data far and wide in a variety of applications.

Updated on: 10-Mar-2022

1K+ Views

Kickstart Your Career

Get certified by completing the course

Get Started
Advertisements