Scientists at a Dutch university have released findings which show that RFID tags could carry a virus which would then spread to the underlying database when an infected tag is scanned.
“Everyone working on RFID technology has tacitly assumed that the mere act of scanning an RFID tag cannot modify back-end software and certainly not in a malicious way. Unfortunately, they are wrong,” the scientists said in a paper.
“An RFID tag can be infected with a virus and this virus can infect the back-end database used by the RFID software. From there it can be easily spread to other RFID tags,” they said.
As a result, it is possible that criminals or militants could use an infected RFID tag to upset airline baggage handling systems with potentially devastating consequences, they said.
It’s a double-whammy of privacy threat and virus threat! Go RFID!
Source: Reuters
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