Quantum computers present a unique threat to many aspects of modern information technology. In particular, many cryptographic systems could be at risk of compromise in the event a malicious actor came into possession of a capable quantum computer.
Mastercard is intending to stay ahead of the game in this regard. It has launched a new contactless credit card that it says is impervious to certain types of quantum attack.
Continue reading “Mastercard’s New Card: Safer From Quantum Attacks?”
Credit card payment systems touch all of our lives, and because of this there’s a lot riding on the security of that technology. The best security research looks into a widely deployed system and finds the problems before the bad guys do. The most entertaining security presentations end up finding face-palmingly bad practices and having a good laugh along the way. The only way to top that off is with live demos. [Karsten Nohl], [Fabian Bräunlein], and [dexter] gave a talk on the security of credit-card payment systems at the 32nd annual Chaos Communications Congress (32C3) that covers all the bases.
While credit card systems themselves have been quite well-scrutinized, the many vendor payment networks that connect the individual terminals haven’t. The end result of this research is that it is possible to steal credit card PINs and remotely refund credits to different cards — even for purchases that have never been made. Of course, the researchers demonstrate stealing money from themselves, but the proof of concept is solid. How they broke two separate payment systems is part hardware hacking, part looking-stuff-up-on-the-Internet, and part just being plain inquisitive.
Continue reading “32C3: Shopshifting — Breaking Credit Card Payment Systems”
When we first saw [Chris Paget]’s cloning video, our reaction was pretty ‘meh’. We’d seen RFID cloning before and the Mifare crack was probably the last time RFID was actually interesting. His ShmooCon presentation, embedded above, caught us completely off-guard. It’s very informative; we highly recommend it.
The hardest part about selling this talk is that it has to use two overloaded words: ‘RFID’ and ‘passport’. The Passport Card, which is part the the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), is not like the passport book that you’re familiar with. It has the form factor of a driver’s license and can only be used for land and sea travel between the USA, Canada, the Caribbean region, Bermuda, and Mexico. They’ve only started issuing them this year.
Continue reading “ShmooCon 2009: Chris Paget’s RFID Cloning Talk”
