I am looking for a card-reader solution that includes not only the physical card-reader but a method to read/program the cards. The end goal is have to give my end users a card-reader and then an associated card they need to swipe to login to the windows machine. I am not worried about end-users 'swapping' cards as they are geographically distant.
Suggestions on where to start?
Thanks in advance,
A simple swipe card is easy to skim and then clone. Often simple magnetic strip readers just contain a secret which is transmitted over usb or ps/2 which could be intercepted by a hardware key logger. Smart card authentication isn't affected by this attack. Even if the challenge response was intercepted, the attacker would have to brute force the private key. Here is more information on implementing two factor authentication for windows.