[Infowarrior] - Black Hat: Battle brewing over RFID chip-hacking demo

[Richard Forno]

Battle brewing over RFID chip-hacking demo
Card maker HID calls foul over Black Hat presentation

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2/26/HNblackhatrfid_1.html

By Paul F. Roberts

February 26, 2007

Secure card maker HID Corp. is objecting to a demonstration of a hacking
tool at this week's Black Hat Federal security conference in Washington,
D.C. that could make it easy to clone a wide range of so-called "proximity"
door access cards.

HID has sent a letter to IOActive, a security consulting firm, accusing
Chris Paget, IOActive's director of research and development, of possible
patent infringement over a planned presentation, "RFID for beginners," on
Wednesday, a move that could lead to legal action should the talk go
forward, according to Jeff Moss, founder and director of Black Hat.

IOActive will hold a press conference Tuesday at 9:00AM to discuss the
issue, according to Joshua Pennell, IOActive's CEO told InfoWorld.

Paget's talk will address widespread security issues with the implementation
of RFID in proximity cards that are sold by HID and other companies and that
are widely used for building access. His RFID cloner was on display at the
recent RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, where he demonstrated for
InfoWorld how the device could be used to steal access codes from HID brand
proximity cards, store them, then use the stolen codes to fool a HID card
reader.

Paget's presentation at Black Hat Federal will go deeper, providing
schematics and source code that attendees could use to create their own
cloning device, and discussing vulnerable implementations of RFID technology
in a wide variety of devices, Paget told InfoWorld at RSA earlier this
month.

"Hopefully I'll be able to give people some information about RFID and get
some pressure on vendors to fix these lousy RFID implementations," Paget
said. "As it stands, I can walk up to someone on the street or maybe stand
next to them in an elevator, grab their card ID and get into the building,"
he said.

So far, Black Hat organizers have not been contacted or asked to cancel
Paget's presentation, but lawyers representing Black Hat, which was
purchased by CMP, are ready should that happen, Moss said.

"We're prepared for the worst," Moss said.

The incident between HID and IOActive recalls a 2005 imbroglio between
researcher Michael Lynn and Cisco Systems over a presentation of a flaw in
Cisco's IOS at a Black Hat event in Las Vegas.

In that incident, Cisco attorneys demanded that Lynn's presentation be torn
out of the printed conference proceedings and that Lynn be blocked from
giving his talk. Lynn ultimately resigned his position at Internet Security
Systems Inc. (ISS) and gave the talk anyway, spawning lawsuits and even an
FBI investigation of him.

Lynn now works as a researcher at Cisco competitor, Juniper Networks.

Whereas Lynn's hack of IOS was considered novel, however, the IOActive
demonstration of RFID vulnerabilities is largely a rehash of known issues,
intended more as an introduction, Moss said.

"They've known about this for years and years," Moss said.

Kathleen Carroll, a spokeswoman for HID's Government Relations group
acknowledged that a letter was sent to IOActive but that it did not mention
patent infringement. She said that the company has long been aware that its
proximity cards are vulnerable to hacking but does not believe that the
cards are as vulnerable as Paget suggests.

"For someone to be able to surreptitiously read a card, they'd have to get
within two or three inches and get into the same plane as the card," Carroll
said.

HID is also concerned that Paget's demonstration will popularize the
vulnerabilities in its proximity cards and endanger its many customers.

"These systems are installed all over the place. It's not just HID, but lots
of companies, and there hasn't been a problem. Now we've got a person who's
saying let's get publicity for our company and show everyone how to do it,
and it puts everyone at risk. Where's the sense of responsibility?" Carroll
said.

According to Moss, HID has charged Paget with patent infringement over his
presentation, but has not laid out any particular remedies or threatened
actions, making it difficult to ascertain what the company might do -- if
anything -- to block the presentation.

Security problems with implementations of RFID are well known and have been
publicized before. In 2005, security consultant Jonathan Westhues detailed
attacks against implanted VeriChip RFID chips. More recently, in January,
Westhues posted detailed code and schematics for an RFID hacking device that
can act as a reader, eavesdrop on RFID transactions between reader and a
tag, analyze the signal received over the air, or impersonate a tag.

In 2005, Avi Rubin and other researchers at Johns Hopkins also sounded the
alarm about weak security in RFID implementations by hacking technology from
Texas Instruments that is used in late model car ignition systems and
electronic payment systems, as well.

All that attention hasn't sparked much change at companies like HID, which
makes fifteen different types of proximity cards in their Prox Products and
Indala Prox Products lines, all of which are believed to be vulnerable to
cloning, according to Paget.

"Some of these cards have been around for 15 years and were developed when
there was no awareness of the problem," Carroll said.

Asked why HID hasn't addressed the issue in more recent proximity card
systems, after knowledge of RFID threats became common, Carroll said that
doing so would cause "major upheaval" among customers.

Inertia is a more likely cause, said Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration
testing at IOActive.

"They didn't want to change to a more secure implementation because of
backwards compatibility issues, and they had a lot of sites that use these
cards, and HID has stuff to sell them," Kaminsky said.

Paget's hack was no feat of engineering wizardry, Kaminsky said. "It took a
month -- and he wasn't even working on it full time."

The problem is that RFID technology, although good for inventory tracking as
a replacement for barcodes, is not well suited for security, Kaminsky said.

"The technology is very convenient, but don't interpret the convenience as
security," Kaminsky said. "At the end of the day, many companies are
essentially using barcode technology to control access to their facilities.
I'd posit that perhaps there are more secure technologies out there."

HID recommends that customers who are concerned about cloning upgrade to one
of HID's smart card products, which do encrypt transmissions between card
and reader and are more difficult to hack, Carroll said.

HID also recommends that companies that use the cards train their employees
to look for suspicious activity that might indicate that someone is trying
to clone or spoof access cards.

As for Paget's presentation, Moss expressed frustration over HID's actions,
especially given the widespread attention to RFID security holes.

"It's just so frustrating from a security standpoint. Now anytime someone
wants to talk about anything, they need a team of lawyers. Even when it's
about commonly understood problems," Moss said.

For now, Moss said Black Hat is supporting Paget and his presentation --
even if last minute changes are needed to satisfy HID, Moss said.

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