This article describes the main features of Nexus Personal Desktop App.

Use cases

Use virtual smart cards for securing the day-to-day business.

Provision manage and use virtual smart cards, Yubikey and other tokens for authentication, signing and encryption.

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Windows-related use cases, such as these:

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Independently of Personal Desktop App, the following use cases also apply:

Integrate PKCS#11 clients with the virtual smart card, for example with Firefox.

User interface

Modern user interface which allows the user to:

View profile and certificate details
Delete profiles
Change PIN
Import certificate from file
Read logs and manage log levels
Change colour theme
Automatically use the language according to Windows setting, for supported languages

Lifecycle management

Integrated into the overall Nexus Smart ID architecture for:

Remote provisioning of certificates to the virtual smart card
Remote PIN reset in case user forgets their PIN
Web browser online authentication via plugout, see Plugout web browser integration.
Web browser online signing via plugout, see Plugout web browser integration.

For more information on use cases, see Virtual smart card management in Smart ID.

Security

Virtual smart cards have the same level of security as a physical smart card:

Keys used for authentication are created and stored in cryptographically secured hardware (TPM)
Non-exportability, isolated cryptography and anti-hammering by using the TPM

¹ _{If you connect to another computer using remote desktop, the virtual smart card on the remote computer is disabled.}

Related information

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