Recover 6131 mifare emulation

[jlanza]

Hi all,

It's a big issue because I think I have blocked the mifare card of my 6131NFC.

When I was writing in the sector trailers I got an exception and it seems that the block was not written completely. Now the problem is that the sector seems to be blocked.

I know that there's no way to recover a mifare card that you have blocked by writing the sector trailer with error, but is it possible to recover the 6131 one? I was thinking that there might be a complete reset/flash of the mobile phone that can make it to get back to initial configuration.

If not, would it be possible to use Smartcafe and access the mifare card from Javacard to restore the values?

Please I need help quite urgent. Nokia is no longer manufacturing the mobile phones and I need to recover this one for a demo.

TA

[mroland]

Hallo,

actually I don't think that there is any chance to recover the MIFARE part of the secure element. As far as I know, the even with the ExtSystem library the sector trailer is used to grant/deny access to the MIFARE part.

Resetting/flashing the phone would not help either because the secure element is a seperate chip that is independent from the phones memory. What would come to my mind is replacing the secure element, i.e. to unsolder the chip and replace it with a new SmartMX chip. Yet, with this solution there is still a chance that the old secure elements ID is registered somewhere in the phone and, thus, any new SE chip will be banned by the phone.

br,
Michael

[jlanza]

Upss... these are really bad news

Please if anybody knows a solution I would really appreciate help.

And for Nokia... on your next NFC mobiles which are subject to 2011, you should include a way to reset the SE and Mifare part, as for devolopers it is quite expensive to buy a new mobile phone Buying a card is cheap but a mobile ufff.

TA

[mroland]

In my opinion a "way to reset the SE and Mifare part" would raise severe security issues (e.g. Who is allowed to erase the secure element?).

New mobile phones will (likely) implement SWP/HCI (single wire protocol/host controller interface). Then it will be possible to use SWP-enabled SIM cards as the secure element, i.e. a replaceable type of secure element.

br,
Michael

[jlanza]

Hope the new phones reach the market in the short time, because it's been lot of years and news about this issue but I'm still waiting

I understand the risks of reset the SE. But it can be done as an option when a user flash the phone or similar. So it is always under user control. Then if something is removed it's up to the user, as it is right now. Maybe there are other security considerations, I'm not getting in.

See you and thanks for you help and comments.

[mroland]

But it can be done as an option when a user flash the phone or similar. So it is always under user control. Then if something is removed it's up to the user, as it is right now.

That's pretty much what I meant with "Who is allowed to erase the secure element?". The user is certainly not the entity that should be allowed to erase the secure element. The owner of the phone (or the SE) might be allowed to manage the SE. In this case the owner could erase the secure element. But most likely there is an independent entity, the trusted service manager, which has the exclusive right to manage a certain SE. Then, nobody else should be allowed to erase the SE.

br,
Michael