Does Iogear Cac Card Reader Work

| 15-09-2021
[RAND-1-100] Comments

We've had several comments about the IOGEAR GSR202. One of our customers sent us one of the readers that doesn't work. We spent some time working with it, and this is what we found.

Card reader is not recognized. Shows up as 'STCII Smart Card Reader' C. Shows up as 'USB Smart Card Reader' (not necessarily a problem) D. Does not read your 'Gemalto TOP DL GX4 144', 'Oberthur ID One 128 v5.5 Dual' CAC. Does not read your CAC when using your Mac. NO TE: We are hearing Mac users having problems with the SCR-331 reader.

The IOGEAR USB Smart Card Access Reader uses a contact system where the card must be swiped through the card reader; this type of reader is less prone to misalignment and eliminates the possibility of being misread. IOGEAR USB Smart Card Access Reader,TAA Compliant, GSR202,Black. CAC reader that seems to work with my Chromebook. It was literally plug-and-play with both my Samsung Chromebook V2 and my Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. Working a lot from home now and it's nice to be able to access my restricted (.mil) sites from my Chromebook with no issues. Facilitate secure, authorized access to restricted systems with this IOGEAR USB-C smart card reader. Its reversible interface enables smooth connectivity to a compatible new-generation laptop and provides high-speed performance when authenticating CAC and PIV cards.


For identification purposes, our reader has a Product ID of 0x9540 and a vendor ID of 0x058f. To see the same information on your reader, open System Profiler ( from the Utilities folder ), select USB, and then select the card reader. You should see something like this:
IOGEAR GSR202 viewed in System Profiler ( Mac OS X v10.6.8 )
IOGEAR GSR202 Profile.png (76.26 KiB) Viewed 52561 times
When I attached this reader to Mac OS X v10.5, v10.6, & v10.7; I could not get it to be recognized by pcscd ( a daemon on Mac OS X that is used to communicate with smart card readers ). On Mac OS X v10.6.8, the following output appears in the system log when the reader is attached:
  • pcscd[27]: Non-smartcard device launched pcscd [Vendor: 0X58F, Product: 0X9540]

Iogear Cac Card Reader

In an attempt to make this reader work, I did the following:
  1. Make a backup of the file the file /usr/libexec/SmartCardServices/drivers/ifd-ccid.bundle/Contents/Info.plist.
  2. Edit the file above ( I used 'vi' ).
  3. At the bottom of the section <key>ifdFriendlyName</key>, add a Friendly Name for the reader:
    • <string>Alcor Micro, Corp. 0x9540</string>
  4. At the bottom of the section <key>ifdProductID</key>, add a Product ID for the reader:
    • <string>0x9540</string>
  5. At the bottom of the section <key>ifdVendorID</key>, add a Vendor ID for the reader.
    • <string>0x058F</string>
  6. Save the file and get pcscd to refresh ( sudo killall pcscd, unplug the reader, and then connect it again ).
Now, the reader works! This solution ( at least for me ) has the side effect of the following line a few times every second:
  • Dec 14 15:44:04 carl com.apple.securityd[23]: /SourceCache/SmartcardCCID/SmartcardCCID-35253/ccid/ccid/src/commands.c:945:CmdGetSlotStatus Card absent or mute
That's not a good solution, but at least it works ( if that's the only option you have ).
If you have any other suggestions, please let me know.
CarlWe've had several comments about the IOGEAR GSR202. One of our customers sent us one of the readers that doesn't work. We spent some time working with it, and this is what we found.
For identification purposes, our reader has a Product ID of 0x9540 and a vendor ID of 0x058f. To see the same information on your reader, open System Profiler ( from the Utilities folder ), select USB, and then select the card reader. You should see something like this:
IOGEAR GSR202 viewed in System Profiler ( Mac OS X v10.6.8 )
IOGEAR GSR202 Profile.png (76.26 KiB) Viewed 52562 times
When I attached this reader to Mac OS X v10.5, v10.6, & v10.7; I could not get it to be recognized by pcscd ( a daemon on Mac OS X that is used to communicate with smart card readers ). On Mac OS X v10.6.8, the following output appears in the system log when the reader is attached:
  • pcscd[27]: Non-smartcard device launched pcscd [Vendor: 0X58F, Product: 0X9540]
Does Iogear Cac Card Reader WorkIn an attempt to make this reader work, I did the following:
  1. Make a backup of the file the file /usr/libexec/SmartCardServices/drivers/ifd-ccid.bundle/Contents/Info.plist.
  2. Edit the file above ( I used 'vi' ).
  3. At the bottom of the section <key>ifdFriendlyName</key>, add a Friendly Name for the reader:
    • <string>Alcor Micro, Corp. 0x9540</string>
  4. At the bottom of the section <key>ifdProductID</key>, add a Product ID for the reader:
    • <string>0x9540</string>
  5. At the bottom of the section <key>ifdVendorID</key>, add a Vendor ID for the reader.
    • <string>0x058F</string>
  6. Save the file and get pcscd to refresh ( sudo killall pcscd, unplug the reader, and then connect it again ).
Now, the reader works! This solution ( at least for me ) has the side effect of the following line a few times every second:
  • Dec 14 15:44:04 carl com.apple.securityd[23]: /SourceCache/SmartcardCCID/SmartcardCCID-35253/ccid/ccid/src/commands.c:945:CmdGetSlotStatus Card absent or mute
That's not a good solution, but at least it works ( if that's the only option you have ).
WorkIf you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

Iogear Cac Card Reader Not Working

Carl