German Researchers Crack Mifare RFID Encryption

jfruhlinger writes "The long-running security battle has seesawed against RFID cards, as German researchers revealed a way to clone one type of card currently used for a variety of purposes, from transit fares to opening doors in NASA facilities." According to the article, "NXP Semiconductors, which owns Mifare, put out an alert to customers warning that the security had been cracked on its MIFARE DESFire (MF3ICD40) smartcard but saying that model would be discontinued by the end of the year and encouraging customers to upgrade to the EV1 version of the card." This response may sound familiar.

RFID cracked? Shocking!

[Baloroth]

But seriously, RFID isn't secure against dedicated attackers. The fact that this vulnerability was known way back when the cards were first made leads me to suspect that they didn't create protection against it then so that they could sell their newer cards now, and save a few bucks at the time. Conveniently, the newer cards are even backwards compatible. Cynical? Maybe, but after recent compromises in the security industry (Sony, DigiNotar), nothing would surprise me. Least of all a company selling a defective-by-design security card to make some extra money.

Vulnerabilities known since years, but covered up

[gentryx]

Johannes Schlumberger and others did some hacking on Mifare cards [uni-erlangen.de] here in Germany. The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg uses them for wireless payments in their canteen [uni-erlangen.de] and also for access control to sensitive areas. After notifying the manufacturer they didn't try to fix the problems, but threatened him with legal action -- even though it was a research project. As it says on Schlumberger's homepage [uni-erlangen.de]: "Unfortunately I am not allowed to make my results public"

NASA and cards

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA has recently had two card initiatives. The first was to replace the ancient keycard swipe card system with newer proximity cards, while leaving the badge system alone. The second replaced both the badges and the (circa mid-2000s) prox cards with still newer HSPD-12 compliant smartcards. This sounds like the prox cards. In other words, it is most likely that NASA has already replaced these cards.

Posting anon for obvious reasons. Speaking for myself rather than my employers.

Take-Two Scenario

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote a paper on the state of RFID security a few years ago. I could write something insightful but I'll just summarise.
Low Power Requirements, Low Cost or Proper Security, pick two. That's the problem the industry faces and the reason we see flawed designs.

Side chain attack

[pipedwho]

The summary poorly describes the real issue.

The encryption algorithm used in these cards is Triple DES. The 64 bit block cipher has not been cracked and still maintains approximately 80 equivalent bits of effective security with its 112 bit key.

However, the crack involves using a side chain attack and card profiling and allows the key to be retrieved within 3 to 7 hours. The attack is complicated, but has always generally suspected to be possible. Until now, no one had demonstrated and shown a detailed method to actually crack this type of card.

This is less of an immediate issue for security installations, as the systems are probably already backed with secondary verifiers (eg. biometrics, codes, etc) for high security requirements, and the access areas are probably counted in the low double digits. Not to mention that most 'security systems' seem to be composed mostly of security theatre anyway.

But, some systems using those cards are MUCH harder to retrofit (eg. electronic money/credit equivalents like metro systems, etc) where the infrastructure is highly diverse. And replacement would involve a massive process of card/reader swap outs, most likely with both systems operating in parallel for a time. Those systems also provide the most financial gain and lowest risk for criminal organisations if they can crack the security of the cards.