Our readers are sourced from a trusted third party. It does not require any specific drivers as we are using well known chip that uses verified OS drivers. Eg: Realtek or Alcor.
That's very good to know, that you don't need to install some sketchy drivers and they work out of the box. Especially important with the current mess of 'Amazon card readers' that are apparently affected at huge scale.
The contractor purchased a $15 card reader sold by Saicoo on Amazon. The device has 4.5/5 stars and 11,700 ratings and appears in the sponsored listing section at the top of the Amazon search results for “PIV (Personal Identity Verification) card reader” or “CAC card reader.” The listing and reviews would suggest that this particular CAC reader is a safe and reputable device. However, when the contractor plugged the device into his computer running Windows 10, he was met with a message saying that the device’s drivers weren’t functioning properly. Windows advised that he find newer drivers on the vendor’s website.
The contractor followed this instruction and found drivers for the device on Saicoo’s website, but didn’t install them right away. He instead uploaded the file to Virustotal, which scanned the file for malware with 63 different antivirus tools. 43 of these tools indicated that the file contained malware, specifically the Ramnit worm.