Within an hour, Jeron Van Beek was able to create a successful clone of Britain’s new E-Passport. All he needed was a £40 card reader, two £10 RFID chips, and a small, improvised script. Although the exact details were not specified, it looks like he read the ID on the real passport using the RFID reader, then he wrote it to the two blank chips and put them in the fake passports. There is also a flaw which may allow outright forging of the passports. Nearly all of the 45 countries using the system have not yet registered with the Public Key Directory, which was put in place to make forging impossible.

The government is claiming that this hack is a hoax, but recent reports have shown that these RFID systems were never secure. No matter what the actual truth is about these hacks, it can certainly be said that the ability to clone or forge these passports would be a devastating security issue for every country involved.

[Photo: Digital World Tokyo]

[via The Guardian]