Risk of Using RFID chips in Passports Oscar Mendez

Department of State: Globally Interoperable It will not permit ``tracking'' of individuals. The new passport document is itself highly tamper resistant. The passport data on the chip does not require encryption in order to be secure and protected Source: Oscar Mendezhttp://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/ htm

Privacy And Security Concerns Access to Readers to the open market Other countries do not have the same standards for security. The passport can be read at a distance without the knowledge of the individual Americans can be a target when overseas Oscar Mendez

State department The contactless smart chip that is being used in the electronic passport is a ``passive chip'' that derives its power from the reader that communicates with it. It cannot broadcast personal information because it does not have its own source of power. Readers that are on the open market, designed to read Type A or Type B contactless chips complying with International Standards Organization (ISO) and ISO 7816 specifications, will be able to communicate with the chip. This is necessary to permit nations to procure readers from a variety of vendors, facilitate global interoperability and ensure that the electronic passports are readable at all ports of entry. Source: Oscar Mendezhttp://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/ htm

Technical information STMicroelectronics Manufacturer of read Type A or Type B contactless chips. Provided a complete technical information of the chips On the web. Everybody has access to this information. Oscar Mendez

Johns Hopkins University & RSA REVERSE ENGINEERED The Exxon-Mobil Speedpass uses a cryptographically-enabled tag manufactured by Texas Instruments, called the Digital Signature Transponder (DST), which incorporates a weak, proprietary encryption scheme to perform a challenge-response protocol. In 2005, researchers from RSA Labs and Johns Hopkins University reverse engineered the algorithm and were able to clone Speedpass tags. Oscar Mendez

From Vrije University Amsterdam Up until now, everyone working on RFID technology has tacitly assumed that the mere act of scanning an RFID tag cannot modify back-end software, and certainly not in a malicious way. Unfortunately, they are wrong. In our research, we have discovered that if certain vulnerabilities exist in the RFID software, an RFID tag can be (intentionall) infected with a virus and this virus can infect the backend database used by the RFID software. From there it can be easily spread to other RFID tags. No one thought this possible until now. Later in this website we provide all the details on how to do this and how to defend against it in order to warn the designers of RFID systems not to deploy vulnerable systems. Source: Oscar Mendezhttp://

The US State Department initially rejected privacy concerns on the grounds that they believed the chips could only be read from a distance of 10 cm (4 in), but in the face of 2,400 critical comments from security professionals, and a clear demonstration that special equipment can read the test passports from 10 m (33 feet) away, the proposal was reviewed. RFID passports will start to be issued in mass distribution in October 2006.[29] In November 2005, the State Department stated that as of October 2006 all US passports will contain RFID chips with some security features. The passports will be shielded to prevent skimming. The department will also implement Basic Access Control (BAC), which functions as a Personal Identification Number (PIN) in the form of characters printed on the passport data page. Before a passport's tag can be read, this PIN must be inputted into an RFID reader. The BAC also enables the encryption of any communication between the chip and interrogator. Oscar Mendez