Cloning RFID Passports

While the MacBook hack story seemed to get the most press from the Blackhat Conference last week, the RFID chip cloning story was, perhaps, the more important one. Bruce Schneier posted his views on the subject, pointing to the Wired News story and reconsidering his position of the security of these devices. (After the US federal government announced the intention to encrypt the data on the chip, Schneier dropped many of his objections.) According to this cNet news story, Lukas Grunwald, a researcher with DN-Systems, showed how to clone passports with RFID tags with a laptop, a $200 RFID reader, and a smart card writer. In theory, the copied chip could be used in a forged passport.

Hopefully, this story won’t die. RFID-based passports just seem like a bad idea.