RFID Hacked Again and Vendor Says it's as Safe as Anything in Your Wallet!

RFID is a highly controversial technology because (some say), it is easily "hacked," which will leave it wide open for data theft. This could mean - a bad guy gaining access to a secure building - or even your personal information being compromised (cloned), when used in "identification documents," such as passports.

And to make it even easier for the crooks, it's "wireless."

Please note that the U.S. State Department plans to start issuing passports with RFID chips in August.

Here is an interesting story by Nic Fulton at Reuters:

Annalee Newitz and Jonathan Westhues presented their experimentations at the HOPE Number 6 conference in New York City in front of a crowd of hackers, tweakers and phone phreakers.

This is the first time someone has cloned an human-implanted RFID chip, Newitz said. Since I have been chipped Jonathan refers to me as an implanted pet.

Newitz said she has an RFID chip implanted in her right arm manufactured by VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Applied Digital.

Their Web site claims that it cannot be counterfeited that is something that Jonathan and I have shown to be untrue.

The pair demonstrated the cloning process: Westhues held a standard RFID reader against Newitz's arm to register the chip's unique identification number.

Next, Westhues used a home-built antenna connected to his laptop to read Newitz's arm again and record the signal off her implanted chip.

Westhues then takes the standard RFID reader and waves it past his laptop's antenna. The reader beeps, showing Newitz's until then unique ID. It actually has no security devices what-so-ever, Newitz said of VeriChip's claims that its RFID chips can not be counterfeited.

Link, here.

And Reuters - in the interest of fair reporting - updated the story to include a comment from Verisign, a leading vendor of RFID technology:

VeriChip spokesman John Procter said in a phone interview that he had read about Newitz and Westhues work, but the company had not been able to review the evidence. He had no specific comment regarding their cloning project.

We can't verify what they may or may not have done, Procter said, adding that: We haven't seen any first-hand evidence other than what's been reported in the media.

It's very difficult to steal a VeriChip, it' s much more secure than anything you'd carry around in your wallet, he added.

My thought for Verichip is please get out there and view some of the evidence. This technology threatens to put us all at risk!

And Verichip is right about one thing, not too much is safe in our wallets (these days) -- thanks to technology -- which seems to be hacked faster than it can be developed.