HOW TO – Back up a RFID passport (or just become Elvis)

vonJeek/THC released a tool and a video how to duplicate (clone) and modify a RFID passport, wow! Via /.

THC/vonJeek proudly presents an ePassport emulator. This emulator applet allows you to create a backup of your own passport chip(s).

The government plans to use ePassports at Immigration and Border Control. The information is electronically read from the Passport and displayed to a Border Control Officer or used by an automated setup. THC has discovered weaknesses in the system to (by)pass the security checks. The detection of fake passport chips does not
work. Test setups do not raise alerts when a modified chip is used. This enables an attacker to create a Passport with an altered Picture, Name, DoB, Nationality and other credentials.

The manipulated information is displayed without any alarms going off. The exploitation of this loophole is trivial and can be verified using thc-epassport.

Regardless how good the intention of the government might have been, the facts are that tested implementations of the ePassports Inspection System
are not secure.

ePassports give us a false sense of security: We are made to believe that they make usemore secure. I’m afraid that’s not true: current ePassport implementations don’t add security at all.

More:

Build a RFID reader/capturer/cloner – code & schematics for Jonathan Westhues’ Proxmark 3 RFID test device is now available. The device allows you to read, capture, and replay/clone transmissions from an RFID tag.

RFID for Makers by Joe Grand in Theory & Practice. Build this kit to read radio frequency ID tags. MAKE 06 – Page 160.