CAC on a MAC: Setting up a DOD Common Access Card Reader on the Macintosh OS X Operating System

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School, along with many other Department of Defense (DoD) organizations, utilizes the ActivCard USB Common Access Card (CAC) readers. The CAC readers in conjunction with the user's Smart Card enables access to DoD PKI-enabled websites and allows the user to send signed and encrypted email utilizing the DoD Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Microsoft Windows systems utilize the ActivCard Gold middleware software to enable CAC reader functionality. This software package is well integrated and documented in the Microsoft Windows environment. Starting with Macintosh OS X 10.4.x, there was no need to install any middle-ware software as all of the support for the US Federal Smart Cards is built in. This document details how to update the ActivCard readers make them fully compliant with OS X 10.4.x and the details the steps necessary to setup the system in order to use the CAC readers under the Macintosh OS X 10.4.x operating system.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA445103

Entities

People

  • Phil Hopfner

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • California
  • Computer Program Documentation
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Department Of Defense
  • Electronic Mail
  • Environment
  • Firmware
  • Governments
  • Information Systems
  • Infrastructure
  • National Security
  • Operating Systems
  • Security
  • Web Browsers
  • Websites

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Database Systems and Applications