This protocol enables to authenticate a Basic Inspection System as a General Inspection System in order to
gain access to the logical MRTD in a potential hostile environment. It also enables to recognize the MRTD as a
genuine one, issued by the Personalization Agent.
The Chip Authentication Protocol is detailed in §3.2 of [BSI_EAC]. Chip Authentication is an ephemeral-static
Diffie-Hellman key agreement protocol that provides secure communication and implicit unilateral authentication
of the MRTD chip. It relies on the Chip Authentication Key Pair stored in the MRTD’s chip. This security function
prevents an attacker from cloning the MRTD’s chip by proving that it actually contains the private Chip
Authentication key that the Personalization Agent stored during the Personalization Phase. This private key is
stored in the MRTD secure memory and protected by both hardware and software memory encryption and
checksum integrity protections, and no external interface enables to retrieve it
As the public Chip Authentication key that the MRTD returns as part of the protocol is signed in the SOD, the
authenticity of the private Chip Authentication key is ensured only when the terminal performs Passive
Authentication (verification of the SOD signature). If Chip Authentication succeeds, the Basic Inspection System
endorses the General Inspection System role with regard to File Access Control.
As a side effect, the protocol provides two session keys KS_ENC and KS_MAC that are subsequently used for
establishing a secure channel with the General Inspection System. When Chip Authentication succeeds, these
keys replace the session keys that were previously derived during the Basic Access Control Authentication,
which are cleared. Otherwise, Secure Messaging is continued using the previously established session keys
(Basic Access Control).