Access to remote EMV cardreader and work with it in virtual machine
Olga Weis Last updated So what exactly is EMV? It is a technical standard used in the smart payment cards, payment terminals, and ATMs that can accept them. The abbreviation EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the three companies that invented and developed the standard. EMV smart cards (or so-called chip cards) contain an integrated circuit alongside the magnetic stripe keeping their data. Such cards can be divided into two groups: the one where the cards should be physically inserted into EMV smartcard reader, and the second one where the cards use radio signals to provide a wireless connection to EMV card reader.
In recent years there is an increasing need for the remote access to EMV chip card reader devices due to the global spread of the chip cards. With the development of technology PoS terminals are becoming even more mobile than ever, and a direct wire connection is not only becoming inconvenient but in some cases not possible at all. Another common case is when EMV smartcard reader software is not compatible with your operating system and you are forced to work from the virtual machine. After installing the required guest OS in Hyper-V, VMware or Citrix Xen Desktop you discover that the locally connected EMV smartcard reader is not forwarded to the virtual environment, making the work with the reader impossible. In such situation a remote access to the smart card reader is the most convenient solution. But how can it be done remotely?
