Gemalto was an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, e-wallets and managed services. It was formed in June 2006 by the merger of two companies, Axalto and Gemplus International. Gemalto N.V.'s revenue in 2018 was €2.969 billion.[1]
The company was purchased by Thales Group in April 2019 and is now operating as Thales DIS (Digital Identity and Security).[2] Gemalto was until its acquisition the world's largest manufacturer of SIM cards.[3]
Thales DIS is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and has subsidiaries and group companies in several countries. It has approximately 15,000 employees in 110 offices along with 24 production sites, 47 personalization centers, and 35 R&D centers in 47 countries.[1]
History
In June 2006, smart card providers Gemplus and Axalto merged to become Gemalto (a portmanteau of the original company names.) Axalto was a Schlumberger IPO spin-off in 2004.
Between the merger and 2015, Gemalto completed a series of acquisitions: the Leigh Mardon's personalization center (Taiwan), Multos International, NamITech in South Africa, NXP mobile services business, the mobile software provider O3SIS, Trusted Logic (the secure software platform provider), Serverside (personalization of bank cards with digital images generated by end users), XIRING's banking activity, Netsize (a mobile communications service and commerce enabler), Valimo Wireless, a provider in mobile authentication, the internet banking security specialist Todos AB in Sweden, Cinterion the German specialist of machine-to-machine (M2M),[4] SensorLogic (an M2M service delivery platform provider), Plastkart in Turkey, Ericsson’s mobile payment platform IPX,[5] the information security company SafeNet and Buzzinbees, the automatic SIM activation expert.[6]
Structure
Gemalto N.V. is the holding company of the Group. The Company's authorized share capital amounts to €150 million and is divided into 150 million ordinary shares, with a nominal value of €1 per share. As of October 2012, out of these 150 million shares that are authorized to be issued by the Board, 88,015,844 shares were actually issued and in circulation. Since 2006, Gemalto comprises three market-focused divisions—Telecommunications, secure transactions and Security, as well as functional organizations for marketing; operations including both production and research and development; finance; human resources and legal.
Telecommunications
Gemalto provides software, subscriber identity modules (SIM), and managed services to more than 700 million subscribers in the telecommunications market. Gemalto has more than 400 mobile telecom operator customers worldwide.
In 2007, Gemalto organized the telecom business into four lines—secure operated services, advanced products and data services, value-added products and service deployment, and SIM cards.
Every year since 2000, Axalto and then Gemalto organized the "SIMagine" contest, the Worldwide Mobile Communication & Java Card Developers Contest, aimed at stimulating SIM-based innovations. Sponsors include Samsung Semiconductor Europe and Sun Microsystems.
In 2016, following the Buzzinbees acquisition, it introduced the concept of SIM reactivation[13] whereby operators can let users reuse expired SIM cards instead of purchasing new ones when they wish to re-subscribe to that operator.
Near field communications (NFC) and mobile payment
On October 30, 2008, Royal Bank of Canada
Banking & Payment
Gemalto supplies contact, hybrid, dual interface and contactless cards, EMV chip cards, payment terminals, and user authentication for secure online banking. Via Gemplus Associates, it also invested in tokenization and Mondex, including Mondex in South Korea.
According to the Nilson report, Gemalto is the largest provider of chip cards, selling 1.5 billion chip cards, representing 49 percent of the market. At the start of 2010 in Germany 20 million ATM cards and 3.5 million credit cards were hit by an end-of-the-decade programming glitch which prevented them working.[15]
Gemalto's customers include 300 banks.
Gemalto worldwide banking and retail customers include Santander UK, ABN AMRO Netherlands, Aktia, Finland, American Express, Banque Accord (France), Accord Italia (Italy), Caisse d'Épargne (France), La Caixa (Spain), Crédit Agricole (France), Diners Club Croatia, Findomestic Italy, Fortis Belgium. Hansabank Estonia,
Security, public sector (e-Government)
e-Passports
Gemalto supplies electronic passport (e-passport) products to Australia, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, India, Italy, Latvia, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, Peru, Malaysia, United States and the United Kingdom among other countries.[32]
As of March 2007, Gemalto has provided technology to more than 10 million e-passports, making them the largest provider, with an estimated 30 percent market share.[33]
In the United States, Gemalto is one of two vendors picked by the Government Printing Office to supply their e-passport program in 2007.
In September 2017, Gemalto announced that its biometric ePassport technology is currently being used in more than 30 different countries, including Algeria, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, France, Italy, Korea, Morocco, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden and the United States.[34]
Security and enterprise
Gemalto supplies its enterprise services through value-added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators. The company's customers include Barclays, Shell, Chevron, Pfizer, Boeing, Telia Sonera, Schlumberger and Microsoft.[45]
In April 2008, Alternative Technology began offering Gemalto's on-demand Device Administration Service (DAS) through its network of 3,000 resellers in the United States and Canada.[46]
In April 2008, Envoy Data Corporation began offering Gemalto's on-demand Device Administration Service (DAS) through its network of IT security specialized VARs.[47]
Security breaches
3G/4G SIM card encryption key leak allegations
According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, NSA's and GCHQ's Mobile Handset Exploitation Team[60] infiltrated Gemalto's infrastructure to steal SIM authentication keys, allowing them to secretly monitor mobile communications.[61] GCHQ codenamed the program "DAPINO GAMMA". The secret GCHQ document leaked by Snowden also claimed the ability to manipulate billing records to conceal their own activity and having access to authentication servers to decrypt voice calls and text messages.[61] Snowden stated that "When the NSA and GCHQ compromised the security of potentially billions of phones (3g/4g encryption relies on the shared secret resident on the sim), they not only screwed the manufacturer, they screwed all of us, because the only way to address the security compromise is to recall and replace every SIM sold by Gemalto."[62]
Partnerships
Key partners of Gemalto include Wipro, Prodapt, Maya, Sendum, Unique Computing Solutions, Symphony Teleca, Bing, Kore, West, etc.[68]
In 2017, OnKöl, a home care hub device started using Gemalto's M2M Module.[69]
See also
References
- Next generation digital security – Annual Report 2018 Gemalto N.V., retrieved 16 September 2020^
- Thales Completes Acquisition Of Gemalto To Become A Global Leader In Digital Identity And Security Thales Group, 4 February 2020, retrieved 16 September 2020^
- The endangered SIM card