A few years ago, I read a story about a new system of touch cards that would speed up shopping for customers wishing to purchase small items, cigarettes and news papers. I have even seen articles in the Taxi trade media that tell of trials for touch cards on small jouneys under £10. The article made reference to credit and debit cards containing RFID chips that were about to be issued by some banks. Now these cards are being issued by most high street banks but without advising customers of the pit falls.
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The article in Wired Magazine, told of a computer programmer who had found a way to read people's card detail by just being in close proximity to the card holder. He had an extremely powerful touch pad reader in a small pouch, connected to a smart phone which he was using to send the data via blue tooth to an accomplice's lap top in the same area.
The team were targeting queues of customers waiting to pay for items in shopping centres as most people hold the goods and card in their hands ready to pay. The reader picks up the weak signal from the RF chip across a distance of just a few inches.The details were then uploaded onto blank Oyster-cards which had been prepared earlier. A third perpetrator would them start making multiple small purchases. Not quite the crime of the century but could prove to be very annoying to victims who have no idea what's going on until their credit card bill arrives. Some banks no longer send paper statements and it would be up to the victim to spot this on their online accounts.
The Oyster-card, which has just celibrated a decade in public use, uses an embedded RFID chip and touch pad system as do many hotel key cards. There has always been a market for old hotel key cards as many hotels add the customers bank details to the card when they register for a room. Old Key cards are sometimes sold on by corrupt hotel staff.
You should never give back your key card when you sign out and make sure you destroy the card completely, just to be on the safe side.
Next we have the airport tag which operates on basically the same system, albeit with an RFID chip that has a much stronger signal.
* Can't be cracked as you have to purchase credits?
* Details have to match data base before you are allowed on the terminals?
Any computer system can be hacked, little program's can be added and back doors left open. Many programmers add secret back doors to program's incase they need access at later dates when the systems are up and running and locked down. If you can make contact with a mainframe computer system through WiFi eventually it can be hacked. With regards to Heathrow, it's just a matter of time.
At present the airport scenario is fiction...but how long did it take for the Wired magazine article fiction to become fact...just a few months.
Sounds unbelievable, but watch the video below and see just how easy this really is.