To follow up on my last post on silicon ID chips recently being planted in the workers of a security firm, some exciting (!) news about the overlooked potential for viruses to infect RFID’s:
Computer scientists at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam said that producers of the technology have overlooked security concerns. They argued that the tags could be used to stage buffer overflow attacks, code insertion or SQL database corruption.
Putting their theories into practice, the team produced a virus which gave them partial control over a RFID chip, allowing them access to commands stored on the chip. Once installed, the virus could self-replicate.
The report implied that advocates of the technology were somewhat complacent of, and may have even ignored, potential security risks.
What would a “buffer overflow attack” look like if it infected an RFID chip embedded in a human? Heck, what would it feel like?! And the bit about obtaining “partial control” over the chip? Maybe it is still a stretch considering the current state of the technology, but what would happen if a chip that actually interfaced or controlled some bodily system were infected? Yet another reason why we don’t need to go bionic any time soon.
Filed under: Novel News
