Your tax Pounds at work – UK government to make ID thieves lives easier

Having all your personal information in one ID is not a very good idea, even if protected by a good encryption scheme. Having all your information in a card protected with a bad encryption scheme is definitely a bad idea.

That seems to be the case with the ID cards issued by the Home Office to foreign nationals working in the UK. As described in a news article, it looks that a cell phone fitted with an RFID scanner and a laptop is all the hardware you need to clone one of these cards and even change the information on it.

Embedded inside the card for foreigners is a microchip with the details of its bearer held in electronic form: name, date of birth, physical characteristics, fingerprints and so on, together with other information such as immigration status and whether the holder is entitled to State benefits.

This chip is the vital security measure that, so the Government believes, will make identity cards ‘unforgeable’.

But as I watch, Laurie picks up a mobile phone and, using just the handset and a laptop computer, electronically copies the ID card microchip and all its information in a matter of minutes.

He then creates a cloned card, and with a little help from another technology expert, he changes all the information the card contains – the physical details of the bearer, name, fingerprints and so on. And he doesn’t stop there.

[Read the whole Mail-Online article]

These cards use the same technology as the ID card for British citizens unveiled last week by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary. ID thieves must be anxiously waiting for the introduction of government ID cards, which will facilitate their daily jobs.  

 

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Filed under: Hacking, ID Theft, InSecurity, RFID, biometrics, in the News , ID Theft, in the News, InSecurity, RFID, Technology

Secure Processors, the ultimate battlefield

Continuing with the main theme my last two posts, hacking, I am going to wrap up with this post about Secure Processors.

A secure processor is meant to protect the information and the communications, validate the communications channel and be tamper-resistant, should it falls into the adversary’s hands.  

Successful hacking of secrets has the duality of being a happy/sad event, depending on which team are you playing for. The design of secure processors makes this duality patent as, in practice, the most important evaluation criterion is that the resulting product should resist the designer’s best attempts at hacking it.

The current research and development efforts are guided by U.S. DoD Anti-Tamper specifications. To prevent reverse engineering, architectures of secure processors are based on a combination of hardware and encrypted software in such a way that if the hardware is captured, its exact functions cannot be guessed without knowing the encryption keys. During WWII, the capture of an ENIGMA machine paved the way for the breaking of the enciphering by the allied forces. These historical lessons are incorporated into today’s design criteria. Some design even incorporate sensors that will detect attempts at using physical means to force the hardware and destroy the critical information upon detection (often called zeroization).

A new dimension to the problem is added by procurement system. Electronic chips are nowadays a commodity and absolute control over the manufacturing of  chips is not possible. Therefore it is essential to ensure that the critical parts, that is the processors, are designed and made in controlled facilities.

The lessons learned in military applications are now being applied to commercial system. This is where the lines blurred because in the interconnected world the enemy can wreak havoc on the infrastructure without firing a shot. Communication and control networks associated with utilities will become more resistant to attacks by using computers fitted with secure processors.

Related:

New Chip Brings Military Security to Commercial Processors

The Hunt for the Kill Switch

Secure Processors – IBM

Acalis White Paper

 

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Filed under: Anti-tamper, Cryptography, Encryption, Hacking, Security, Software, Technology , Anti-tamper, secure processors, Security, Technology