Redacted RFID talk delivered at Black Hat
ARLINGTON, Va.--A security researcher on Wednesday delivered a redacted version of a presentation on RFID risks.
The talk at the Black Hat DC conference here was cancelled on Tuesday and was to be replaced with a presentation by the American Civil Liberties Union. However, Chris Paget, director of research and development with IOActive, got on stage anyway and delivered a modified version of his planned talk.
IOActive had originally withdrawn the presentation citing a legal threat from HID Global, a major seller of access systems.
Paget instead removed a slide that listed specifications of a particular RFID tag implementation from HID Global. He also did not demonstrate a handheld RFID tag cloner, which was originally planned.
Paget also displayed quotes from its correspondence with HID Global to show that the company was indeed threatened. HID Global on Tuesday issued a statement to the media stating that it had done no such thing and that it was surprised that IOActive had pulled its talk.
The IOActive presentation ultimately did highlight some weaknesses of RFID tags, but without many details on how the tags could be cloned.
The concept behind IOActive's presentation is not new. RFID security is regularly scrutinized. In fact, at last year's Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas, a German security researcher showed how passports equipped with the radio tags could be cloned. The same researcher said this could also be done with building access cards.
