German Researchers Crack Mifare RFID Encryption

jfruhlinger writes "The long-running security battle has seesawed against RFID cards, as German researchers revealed a way to clone one type of card currently used for a variety of purposes, from transit fares to opening doors in NASA facilities." According to the article, "NXP Semiconductors, which owns Mifare, put out an alert to customers warning that the security had been cracked on its MIFARE DESFire (MF3ICD40) smartcard but saying that model would be discontinued by the end of the year and encouraging customers to upgrade to the EV1 version of the card." This response may sound familiar.

Comments

Re:RFID cracked? Shocking!

[Necroman]

Or they had a working solution and wanted to get something out the door to start making money. If creating a new solution only took a month, that's money in the eyes of business leaders that they would not be making. So they make the decision to sell now, then fix the problem later. Plus, as you said, it leads to upgrades.

With something like the security of RFID cards, I would think that shipping with a possible security hole would be a pretty big deal. But its hard to say why the would make such a decision (or how aware of the possibility of it being cracked).