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InstaNFC – Access Control Hardware for Developers

instanfc.com

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Re: InstaNFC – Access Control Hardware for Developers

#21
post #15
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost/performance, time to market, IDE, ability for others to understand

Cost will be lower with your own design because you'll integrate other components on the same board. It needs power, probably battery backup too. It needs to control some coil of electromagnetic lock. Access control is more than just flashing LEDs. It has IDE because ESP32 has IDE.

“Built out of internal necessity” - I didn’t write this for no reason. Here is a little more background: https://inoads.com/articles/2021-07-01-keyRead-Announcement

Re: InstaNFC – Access Control Hardware for Developers

#22
post #20

It's not a good idea to have the decision making happening on the outside of the door you want to protect. Ideally, the outside component should just be the antenna and the microcontroller should be on the inside of the door. As they demonstrate in the video, you can open their example case with a screwdriver, so then you could either short some connections to release the door lock (if it's self-contained), or connec…

Bypassing the system is not completely trivial, but for a determined actor, possible. For outdoor or higher security installations, two boards are recommended, where the outside one acts purely as an antenna.

Re: InstaNFC – Access Control Hardware for Developers

#23
post #10

NFC tags aka MIFARE Classic and the like? Those would be susceptible to cloning with something like Chameleon Tiny and to repeater attacks. You need actual contactless smartcard support if you want to use it for something serious. Otherwise be ready for LockPickingLawyer making an example of you of how not to do it, he already has similar videos about it. PC/SC compatible stuff is out there if you know where to look…

Both Ultralight EV1 and NTag 21X are supported and recommended. Cloning is possible for the NTag, but there’s currently no chip out there that can actually lock block 0, which makes detecting and bricking them trivial.

One can make this system as secure as the specs require it to be: brick clones, reject certain tag types, add encryption, add counters, perform analysis server side, etc.

Re: InstaNFC – Access Control Hardware for Developers

#24
post #23
post #10

NFC tags aka MIFARE Classic and the like? Those would be susceptible to cloning with something like Chameleon Tiny and to repeater attacks. You need actual contactless smartcard support if you want to use it for something serious. Otherwise be ready for LockPickingLawyer making an example of you of how not to do it, he already has similar videos about it. PC/SC compatible stuff is out there if you know where to look…

Both Ultralight EV1 and NTag 21X are supported and recommended. Cloning is possible for the NTag, but there’s currently no chip out there that can actually lock block 0, which makes detecting and bricking them trivial. One can make this system as secure as the specs require it to be: brick clones, reject certain tag types, add encryption, add counters, perform analysis server side, etc.

As long as people are warned it's up to them to decide. Personally I like standards and this on the other hand is a bit of a lipstick on a pig situation. It was allowed to go on for far too long already with every vendor just glossing it over, not unlike what happens with actual locks and keys.
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