scope:

This part of ISO/IEC 7816 specifies an application in a card. This application contains information on cryptographic functionality. This part of ISO/IEC 7816 defines a common syntax and format for the cryptographic information and mechanisms to share this information whenever appropriate. The objectives of this part of ISO/IEC 7816 are to: - facilitate interoperability among components running on various platforms (platform neutral); - enable applications in the outside world to take advantage of products and components from multiple manufacturers (vendor neutral); - enable the use of advances in technology without rewriting application-level software (application neutral); and - maintain consistency with existing, related standards while expanding upon them only where necessary and practical. It supports the following capabilities: - storage of multiple instances of cryptographic information in a card; - use of the cryptographic information; - retrieval of the cryptographic information, a key factor for this is the notion of "Directory Files", which provides a layer of indirection between objects on the card and the actual format of these objects; - cross-referencing of the cryptographic information with DOs defined in ISO/IEC 7816 when appropriate; - different authentication mechanisms; and -. multiple cryptographic algorithms (the suitability of these is outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 7816).