Supposedly Fakeproof E-Passports Easily Cloned
Computer researcher Jeroen van Beek of the University of Amsterdam recently teamed up with The Times of London to test the security of supposedly fakeproof e-passports.
The results were not so good. In less than an hour, van Beek cloned two passports and attached photos of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber that killed three people in 2003. The software responsible for reading the e-passport accepted the cloned passports with no problems.
It has been claimed by national security agencies that cloned passports would not go through due to the identification of fake key codes using the Public Key Directory (PKD). The problem with this is that only ten of the 45 countries that offer e-passports have signed up for the PKD system, and only five countries have implemented it. The solution would be to fake a passport from one of the countries that aren’t sharing the key codes. That way, even American and British authorities would not be able to identify a fake.
Though the report mentions that it may even be possible to alter the biometric content of a passport as well, there isn’t any evidence given that this is the case. Britain’s Home Office claims if any data were ever changed, it would be immediately discovered by the electronic reader.
Hopefully that is the case.
Story via Steve Boggan of Times Online
Technorati Tags: e-passports, public key directory
