Vulnerability Found in E-Passports
Computer science researchers at a university in Britain have discovered a vulnerability in E-passports issued by the United States, U.K. and around 50 other countries, according to HomelandSecurityNewswire.
According to the researchers, the E-passports are vulnerable to “traceability attacks,” which allows hackers to remotely track a passport holder.
The vulnerability allows the hacker to follow the holder of the E-passport without having to first crack the cryptographic keys, which protect the personally identifying information contained in E-passports. The researchers from University of Birmingham found the vulnerability which cannot be disabled.
Tom Chothia and Vitaliy Smirnov wrote:
“A traceability attack does not lead to the compromise of all data on the tag, but it does pose a very real threat to the privacy of anyone that carries such a device. Assuming that the target carried their passport on them, an attacker could place a device in a doorway that would detect when the target entered or left a building.”
You can read the paper here.
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