Smart Cards Vulnerable to Photo-Flash Attacks?

belphegor writes "Researchers at the University of Cambridge have found a way to use a camera flash and microscope to extract data from smart cards. " Notable because its apparently relatively simple to do and really throws a monkey wrench into a variety of businesses that use smart cards to store important data.

Shouldn't they be arrested?

[Wiseazz]

Where's Adobe when you need them?

SMILE!!

[Indras]

Your data's on Candid Camera (tm)!

Trust us, OUR cards ARE smart...

[dpbsmith]

"Alex Giakoumis... said his company had built defensive measures into its products that would make them invulnerable to such an attack. However, he said he was unwilling to be specific about the nature of the security system."

However, it is speculated that the card contains material that can obscure the flash, literally achieving "security through obscurity."

Easy solution: Nanotubes

[MontyP]

All they need to do is intertwine single wall carbon based nano tubes throughout the memory. When the camera flash hits the memory, the memory will self destruct.

Re:Now I just got to figure out

[Bob McCown]

Ah ha, a money laundering scheme, eh?

The handyman's secret weapon

[gambit3]

"We used duct tape to fix the photoflash lamp on the video port of a Wentworth Labs MP-901 manual probing station," they wrote in their paper.

No matter how high tech, there's no experiment that can't be improved with duct tape

It's been done...

[BlueFall]

Lisa: Dad! The flash must have scrambled their circuits.
Homer: What are you, the narrator?

-- The Simpsons, Itchy and Scratchy Land, 2F01

Re:They should have used the iButton

[arkanes]

Yeah, because I have this pressurised N2 atmosphere sitting over here in my basement...

it's sad this springs to mind.

[BreakWindows]

A team of researchers from I.B.M.'s Thomas J. Watson Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., said they would present a report at the conference based on their discovery ...

Dmitri called. He said if you see any guys in cheap suits applauding on stage right, exit stage left.

That's what they're calling it these days, eh?

[soulcuttr]

From what little I know, any criminal who has been to jail has had access to a "manual probing station". IANAC (I Am Not A Criminal), but I think it's located in the showers.

-Sou|cuttr

Mr. Anderson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Anderson is a well-known computer security researcher whose work in both computer security and cryptography is widely recognized.

My name is Neo!

Re:Easy to do?

[uberdave]

They're criminals. Why wouldn't they just steal one?

Re:They should have used the iButton

[Tackhead]

> Yeah, because I have this pressurised N2 atmosphere sitting over here in my basement...

I tried building that. I'm 70% of the way there.

Re:They should have used the iButton

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to his basement and I don't think he is using N2. I thought N2 was odorless