Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Wednesday 18 June 2008, 5:03 PM
Dutch researchers crack London's Oyster card
No longer. Wouter Teepe and Bart Jacobs, from Radboud University, today told the Dutch parliament that they'd cracked and cloned London's Oyster card. They were able to not only take free rides on the Underground, but even execute a denial-of-service attack on the gates. Check out a Google translation here of an article, by Webwereld's Brenno de Winter, on the subject.
We're awaiting comment from TfL, and are also in touch with one of the researchers. So, expect more on this tomorrow... I get a feeling this story will roll on and on.
UPDATE (Thursday): Click here for TfL's response...
PreviousComments on this post
Good thing there aren't crooks, they could've just sold their discovery to counterfieters who'd then make fake oyster cards!
But once someone has done it for "research" or to prove it could be done others will attempt it for profit or even just to maliciously shutdown a station. Worse still terrorists could use it to cause a disruptions or use it as a distraction while they do worse.
Whatever security is used there will eventually be a crack/hack for it so I don't know why TfL were confident that the Oyster was safe. Just hope this stunt by these researchers doesn't cost us all if TfL have to spend millions upgrading the system and replacing all our cards.
