UK RFID passports cracked
I think the title says it all. I know I’ve not been posting much (well, at all) for a while, but this really deserves a mention..
A story in today’s Guardian reveals that a team of researchers cracked the protection on the UK’s new biometric RFID passports in 48 hours, using less than £200 of over-the-counter electronics equipment.
“If you can read the chip, then you can clone it,” [Lukas Grunwald, founder of DN-Systems Enterprise Solutions in Germany] says. “You could use this to clone a passport that would exploit the system to illegally enter another country.”
November 17th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Following criticism from computer security professionals and civil libertarians about the privacy risks posed by new RFID passports the government plans to begin issuing, a State Department official said his office is reconsidering a privacy solution it rejected earlier that would help protect passport holders’ data.