June 26, 2008

Oyster card system hacked

It may have seemed to have been a stunt or a bit of joke when a team of security researchers armed only with a laptop, were able to ride the London underground for free all day long with no interference from staff or anyone.

However the joke becomes a very serious matter when you find out that the chip contained within the oyster card known as the Mifare Chip is the same chip that is used by government departments. These include hospitals, schools and government offices.

The team simply scanned one of the oyster card readers to get the cryptographic key. All they had to do then was to get close to passengers and scan their oyster cards. With this information they were able to programme as many cloned oyster cards as they wanted. Now can you see the seriousness of this security flaw?

Source [Wired]