Oyster Cards vulnerable to RFID hack, lots of other systems too

Sure, it's fun to say that one billion RFID cards are now at risk due to the Mifare Classic's broken encryption, but it's another thing to comprehend how widespread the fallout could potentially be -- the London Underground's Oyster Card is based on the chip, for example. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: a new report says that the system can be broken in minutes using a typical PC -- check the video after the break for a demonstration. We've also listed all the other now-potentially-vulnerable Mifare RFID implementations we could find, but there's got to be more -- put 'em in comments!

Cities / countries using the Mifare Classic for access control and / or mass transit ticketing:

• London (Oyster Card)
• Boston
• Netherlands (OV-Chipkaart)
• Minneapolis / St. Paul
• South Korea (Upass, T-money, Mybi)
• Hong Kong
• Beijing
• Milan
  
• Madrid (Sube-T)
• Australia (Smartrider)
• Sao Paulo (Bilhete Unico)
• Rio de Janeiro (RioCard)
• Bangkok
• New Delhi

[cassio Posted Mar 17th 2008 11:01AM]

exactly...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa

i thought they're different

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 15th 2008 12:55AM]

its gonna effect a huge chunk of Asia... HK MTR, Singapore, Travelcard for India, Shenzhen Transcard... virtually all of Japan, the Pasmo, SUGOCA, TOICA to name a few...

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 16th 2008 9:49PM]

Also Malaysia's Touch n Go system uses this sytem - cards used in most public transport, highway tolls and carparks.
Many bank ATM machines have RFID pads for re-loading your card directly from your account.

[Tensor Posted Mar 15th 2008 1:38AM]

@azureice:

If you want to learn more head over to rfidiots.org most of this is derived from there, from mifare hacking to passport hacking and reading with sources.

[ecobore Posted Mar 15th 2008 3:39AM]

Hmm, don't give a damn about people gaining free access to the tube, but it IS worrying that secure establishments can be accessed by all and sundry, and more importantly that this bloody stupid RFID passport can be hacked so simply.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 15th 2008 6:24AM]

While oyster accounts are linked to a name and an address, I don't believe any of that info is on the chip. And it's unlikely that you'd be able to hack the card to give you unlimited money since they're just tied into an account.

So just about the only thing possible is cloning someone else's card after cracking it, but it's not really worth the effort, and also very unlikely to be able to do without someone noticing. It might just take a few minutes at home, but probably not quite that easy to do on the tube.

Man you guys are making me miss London. Haha, shopping at Sainsbury's and chillin' at the Borders near Oxford circle (yeah ok I know I miss boring things).

[celloids Posted Mar 15th 2008 8:53AM]

That laptop is too big to use. Should have used umpc instead.