Foolproof 'Secure' Passports: cloned in less than an hour

Davey Winder
Wednesday, 06 August 2008 20:00

Your IT - Home IT

You know those expensive, high tech, secure e-passports that governments the world over tell us will prevent identity theft, stop terrorists in their tracks and all because they are fake proof? Turns out they can be successfully cloned in a matter of minutes...

The Times of London reports today how it managed to successfully clone a fake proof e-passport, turning a baby into Osama bin Laden in the process.

The newspaper got Jeroen van Berk from the University of Amsterdam, and a renowned security expert, to use his own software to read, clone and alter the microchip data from a secure e-passport. Hi did so while ensuring that the passport would still be accepted as the genuine article at most airport border controls.

All van Berk required to fake the passports were a couple of RFID chips which cost UKP £10, and a UKP £40 card reader, in addition to his own software that is.

He changed the chip from one passport belonging to a 36 month old baby boy into one with an image of Osama bin Laden instead. van Berk also changed a 36 year woman into the Palestinian suicide bomber Hiba Darghmeh.

It makes a mockery of UK government claims recently that such passports cannot be faked. An argument put into play when 3000 blank e-passports were stolen in July.

The Times verified that the fake passports were readable using the standard Golden Reader software in place at most airports and approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. It passed them as the genuine article, and revealed no signs of tampering.

Which is odd, because the UK government has also argued loud and clear that any faked chips would immediately be spotted as such because their key-codes would show up as a mis-match and alert the person doing the reading.

Unfortunately, The Times reports, only 10 of the 45 countries with e-passports have a Public Key Directory system at all, and only five of them are actually using it!