In 2004, Sony, Philips Semiconductors, and Nokia jointly developed Near-field communication, which is now the NFC function in smart phones. As the overlord of the feature phone era, Nokia was the first manufacturer to introduce this technology to mobile phones. , Google and Apple followed up the technology later.
It is undeniable that Apple is the latest manufacturer to apply this technology. In 2014, Apple launched its first NFC-enabled smartphone, iPhone 6 . At that time, Apple imposed certain restrictions on NFC, and the iPhone’s NFC function can only be used for Apple Pay.
It was not until the release of iOS 13 in 2019 that Apple opened the iPhone’s NFC tag reading and writing function, which can be used with shortcut instructions to complete automated operations.
However, Apple still does not allow third-party applications and services to use the NFC function on the iPhone, which is controversial. Recently, the Australian Parliament asked Apple to explain the NFC problem on the iPhone. Apple said that the reason why the NFC function on the iPhone does not support HCE host card emulation is because it does not want to lose security like Android phones.
Since Google has opened up NFC permissions,Therefore, we can only choose a software-centric solution, and the security will generally be low. Apple has a high degree of integration between the operating system and hardware, and can provide a complete integration solution. Compared with Android phones, NFC on the iPhone will be more secure.
At present, Google has denied that the NFC function on Android phones is less secure. At the same time, Google said that Google Play has the same user experience as Apple Pay. In other words, the NFC function on Android phones is very secure.
Is NFC on the iPhone so safe?
Apple claims that the NFC function on iPhone is more secure than Android phones. Is that true? Although Apple did not give a detailed explanation of the NFC on the iPhone, we can roughly infer whether Apple's statement is correct from the previous disassembly diagram of foreign media.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, starting with iPhone 6, Apple officially introduced the NFC function. At that time, according to iFixit's disassembly diagram of iPhone 6, it is not difficult to see that the machine is equipped with an NFC chip model NXP-65V10.
Here is a simple knowledge point of popular science, NXP ( NXP ) is a semiconductor company,The predecessor was the Semiconductor Division established by Philips. In addition to Apple, NXP also provides NFC chip solutions for other mobile phone manufacturers, such as Samsung. According to reports at the time, the NFC chip on the iPhone 6 is a model specially designed by NXP for Apple, but it is impossible to verify whether the chip is equipped with additional security components.
Looking back at past iPhone disassembly, we can find that from iPhone 6 to iPhone 12 , almost every generation model uses NXP’s NFC chip solution, such as iPhone 7 Plus It is PN67V, 80V18 that iPhone 8 Plus is equipped with, etc. Earlier, foreign media Techinsights said that the NFC chip of iPhone 8 Plus is almost the same as the PN80T in the Samsung Galaxy S8 series. It is not obvious from the surface that there is a difference between the two.
▲IFixit's dismantling diagram of iPhone 12
in1span It was later discovered that PN80T built-in eFlash security element. This means that the mobile phone only needs to use NXP’s NFC chip solution,Then it is equipped with safety elements inside.
From the current point of view, the NFC chip on the iPhone is not much different from the Android surface. As for whether the internal structure of the chip is consistent, it is temporarily unclear, so whether the NFC on the iPhone is true in terms of security Better than Android phones, which is really hard to judge. However, it is certain that the NFC chip on the Android phone is also equipped with related security elements, and its security is not necessarily worse than that of the iPhone.
Or we can change our thinking. If the NFC chip on the iPhone is more secure, why is Apple not confident in opening up relevant permissions to third-party apps?
Of course, the hardware is only one aspect, the encryption of the software algorithm can also improve the security of NFC. Take the lock screen password on the iPhone as an example. The official document shows that Apple uses a 256-bit AES encryption method to encrypt iPhone data. It can be said that it is more difficult to crack this encryption method than to get to the sky. Back then, the FBI could not crack the criminal's iPhone, let alone ordinary hackers.
At present, Apple has not announced whether it has encrypted the NFC on the iPhone. If so, then Apple's statement may be true. If not, then this statement is somewhat unconvincing.
Is protecting user privacy and information security just a cover?
NFC itself does have many security risks.Take the UnionPay card with the QuickPass logo as an example. The information in the card can be read by a card reader. This information may include the consumer's name, consumption record, ID number, etc. When criminals obtain the user's bank card, it means that your personal information has been leaked, and the bank card may be stolen by others.
It can be seen from Apple’s official documents that NFC controllers and secure components basically serve Apple Pay. can be summarized in one sentence. When users use Apple Pay to pay, the payment information will be encrypted by the secure element and then sent to the Apple server.
In fact, Apple does not allow third-party applications to authorize NFC permissions on the iPhone. The protection of user privacy is only a secondary maintenance tool, and its main purpose is to maintain The dominant position. According to the latest report released by the Foresight Industry Research Institute, as of the end of 2020, WeChat Pay ranked first in the world with 1.151 billion annual active users; among Apple mobile phones, Apple Pay users ushered in rapid growth, with 441 million users ranking third.
Judging from the rapid growth of Apple Pay’s annual active users, it is precisely because of Apple’s restrictions on NFC that banks can only find Apple to cooperate, and cannot access NFC on the iPhone through third-party applications, so In terms of restricting NFC, Apple has become the biggest beneficiary.
Apple claims that it does not want to sacrifice the security of NFC like Android does.In fact, it's just an excuse. Apple's purpose in doing so is to monopolize the mobile payment market through Apple Play, so as to bring more profits to the company.
Summary
strong37FC is not the only security component on the Android phone. And whether it is Apple or Android, they basically use NXP's NFC solution. Since it is the same supplier, and Apple has not announced that it has participated in the development of NFC chips. Therefore, Apple claims that the NFC chip of the iPhone is more secure than Android. It should only be based on semi-open NFC and fully open NFC. Based on.
Based on the information currently available, the main difference in security between the NFC on the iPhone and Android is nothing more than the former has an additional restriction that does not allow third-party applications to access the iPhone’s NFC is nothing, the rest really can't see the difference.
In fact, Apple should not forcefully deprive users of the right to choose. NFC's own application scenarios are quite generalized, and it can indeed bring a lot of convenience to users. , The NFC on the phone will help you open the door; if you want a fool-like connection accessory, the NFC on the phone will help you get it done. These are the practical values of NFC. Although Apple’s restriction of NFC does help to better protect the security of users’ personal information, at least an NFC permission switch should be set inside the system.Let users determine whether to grant certain third-party applications permissions based on their own needs.
Although Apple did add an NFC switch in the iOS settings, users still cannot read and write access control cards and authorize third-party applications. For users, what they really want is the convenient features brought by NFC. The castrated version of NFC will only make them gradually lose patience with Apple.
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