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Chip-And-PIN Hack Is So Scary Because It Surprised No One
The most comprehensive—albeit mysterious—attack on the Cambridge report was contained in a story from SecureIDNews. This story said that, “The Smart Card Alliance has reviewed the hack along with other industry organizations and concluded that widespread implementation of this attack is unlikely.” The mysterious part is that, according to Smart Card Alliance Spokeswoman Deb Montner, the Smart Card Alliance–to her knowledge–has reached no such conclusions and has issued no such statement.
Well, no matter its source, the points are reasonable enough challenges of some of the Cambridge University report’s details. First are questions about the practicality of using a stolen EMV card before the card is reported missing. The SecureIDNews story also said the hack damage potential couldn’t extent to ATMs for cash withdrawals, “as ATMs rely on an online PIN verification.”
The report attributed to the Smart Card Alliance also raised two weaker challenges, namely that the attack couldn’t work in the real world (something the BBC video of it happening in the real world tends to disprove) and that “the attack is technically difficult, requiring highly sophisticated software and customized hardware that could only be created by individuals with extensive knowledge of EMV protocols.” Cyberthiefs with a shot at the millions of British EMV cards? They tend to be very quick studies and, by the way, will be much better funded than a university research team.
DSW’s Black also questioned this shortcoming, saying that it flies in the face of the history of cyberthief gangs. “Cookie-cutter solutions are only a matter of time. By way of example, look at PIN pad skimmers and the multitude of hacking frameworks and tools that require little or no knowledge of the underlying protocols,” he said.
Another attack of the report attributed to the Smart Card Alliance said: “Such an attack would not compromise the smart card, as the PIN would still remain secure inside the card.” Black argued that this defense misses the point: “With this attack, knowledge of the PIN is extraneous.”
To a major extent, these are all—on both sides—nitpicks. The big-picture point is that this Cambridge report makes it clear how flawed chip-and-PIN currently is. Can these flaws be fixed? Yes, and rather quickly, too. But should the payments industry sit around and wait for a university to point out huge security holes?
If the industry was more stunned by these revelations, it would be more comforting. But the muted reactions confirm that holes of this nature are well known. Not the specific holes, perhaps. But it’s not a surprise to anyone that the protocol was not written with airtight security in mind.
It reminds me of my early reporting career, when I spent years investigating semi-corrupt government agencies and politicians in New Jersey. The surprise was never that a particular politician was crooked. Rather, it was that someone had bothered to prove it.
-Marc
February 18th, 2010 at 10:11 am
This hack demonstrates a much larger vulnerability that goes way beyond payment authorization. As software design has moved to “object oriented” designs that encapsulate data and processes along with the whole concept of “stateless objects” the “man in the middle” or wedge attack becomes much easier. This could really happen in any situation. Just as we are hearing more about cyber attacks from overseas, we are using software design techniques that make our systems more vulnerable. Better get a kerosene lamp.
February 18th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I worked on EMV project in Canada. EMV is better than plain MSR card. No doubt. This is not marketing “gimmick”.
The Cambridge/BBC video shows a guy using a Netbook PC and an EMV “test card” hooked on a stolen EMV card. Sure, you may hide all the cables
February 18th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Sure, you may hide all the cables but the setup will be obvious if you are wearing a T-Shirt. ;)
EMV has to fix this. I don’t know if the same issue has been raised in Canada.
February 18th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Mr. Bittner,
How do you equate the failure of a developed-in-secret, 14-year-old cryptographic protocol with the adoption of object oriented programming, the recognition of design patterns, or the maturity of software engineering as a discipline? You are comparing oranges to a philosopher’s left elbow — the argument doesn’t even parse.
There were no software failures here, no code crashes being exploited nor buffer overrun attacks smashing stacks. This was a failure in the design and creation of a *protocol* that fell prey to being spoofed. No objects failed, because no objects were transmitted. This is 100% protocol design failure; and it can be blamed on the secretive nature of the original design process and the immature cryptographic skills of the original protocol designers. (Here’s a hint for all you budding cryptographers: the best cryptographers know they aren’t good enough by themselves. They always seek outside validation of their designs. Always.)
The chips inside the smart cards don’t even have the memory or the horsepower to support object oriented programming techniques. There aren’t dynamic memory allocations. These are tiny 8-bit chips with about 1K of RAM, and the applications hand coded in assembler (or possibly C.)
I’m sorry if you are uncomfortable with modern design techniques, object oriented languages, test-driven development, design patterns, or if you think programming should still be functional now because it was functional back when you first learned it. If you are interested in that kind of bare-metal programming, might I suggest embedded systems design? It’s all about writing code for these tiny standalone processors, where every byte still matters and every cycle still counts. You even get style points for writing in assembler. :-)
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Long ago I used to write code for smart card terminals, including those that accepted EMV cards. Even with the imperfections, the chip-based systems are much more secure than mag-stripe. The fact that this particular hole went undiscovered for at least six years is actually pretty impressive. Although I don’t know the specifics, I’m willing to bet this particular issue can be resolved in the terminal code without having to reissue all the cards.
This is a great example of the importance of ethical hacking. Hats off to the Cambridge team.
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Was it undiscovered? And are we sure there are variations already in the wild? There have been many customer complaints of fraudulent activity with EMV and most were simply swept under the carpet and attributed to a failure of the cardholder without much investigation. Recently the EU shifted some of the burden of proof back to the banks and this was done prior to this Cambridge report. If the system is so secure, why the shift?
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:59 pm
This hack has been available for over 8 years now. I doubt this should be a surprise to anyone.