Which is better, Mifare Plus or Mifare Classic?

The NXP Mifare family includes the Mifare Plus and Mifare Classic products. Following the security breach of Mifare Classic, NXP introduced a new generation of contactless cards, Mifare Plus, to fill the void.

All MIFARE cards meet the ISO14443A industry standard and, like other contactless cards, use an internal antenna and chip that reacts once the card enters the magnetic field of the reader. NXP Semiconductors manufactures all MIFARE cards, which run at 13.56MHz (part of Phillips Electronics).

Mifare Plus Advantages

MIFARE Plus is a gateway to new smart city applications as well as a compelling security upgrade for legacy infrastructure. It provides seamless upgrades to existing MIFARE Classic systems, as well as low-cost product-based installation and service.

The Mifare chip retains the memory model of the classic card to facilitate migration of existing applications: the card is structured as a 16-byte array of blocks, which are grouped into sectors of 4 or 16 blocks. Security (and access control) is handled on a sector-by-sector basis. Plus has two advantages: its new security scheme (EAL 4+ authentication), a password-based on a cutting-edge 128-bit key, and its optional random ID-3, which addresses cardholder privacy concerns.

KYE Characteristics:

The international standard ISO/IEC 14443A is fully met.

10 cm read/write distance (4 inches)

Product portfolio consistency and multiple sourcing at all levels of the value chain

2K bytes or 4 Kbytes of memory

UID: 4 or 7; optional random UID support

128-bit AES encryption is supported.

EAL 4+ common criteria certification

MIFARE PLUS X for advanced commands and MIFARE PLUS S for straightforward migration

Cards with increased security

It has the potential to be used in over 40 different types of applications around the world.

Application

The fare collection system is automated.

Employee identification cards

Management of Access Control

Payment by contactless/cashless

Payment for parking

Campus/Student identification cards

Cards of loyalty

Tourist identification cards

Transportation ticketing

Ticketing for events

Ticketing on the go

Cards from the library

Gas cards

Key cards for hotels

Taxi vouchers

Product Verification

Production management

Rental car cards

Car fleet administration

Gas cards

Lottery tickets that are interactive

Social Security cards

Waste Control

Conclusion.

If the security requirements are not too stringent and there is a limited budget, the Mifare Classic chip is recommended; otherwise, the Mifare Plus chip is recommended, so do you get it?