It would seem that any action that could interfere with the security of devices and systems based on electronic cards is impossible. However, the ingenuity of users knows no bounds, and hackers are constantly coming up with new methods of attacking electronic cards. The best example of this is PAY TV coding systems, whose security measures have been breached. Electronic cards were used in them, but they proved ineffective, and instructions on how to break the security quickly spread via the Internet. Broadcasters of coded signals were forced to change their coding systems, and as a result, they incurred significant costs.
Special departments have even been created to fight piracy, whose main role is to track information about errors and oversights in systems on an ongoing basis. Electronic cards can be attacked in two ways – invasively and non-invasively. An invasive attack involves physical interference with the structure of the electronic card. Non-invasive attacks, also known as eavesdropping attacks, use the analog characteristics of voltage supply and interface connections, as well as any other characteristics of electromagnetic radiation produced during the normal operation of the card. One of the easier attacks to carry out is blocking the reader’s access to the appropriate card contacts. Such actions were successful against PAY TV systems, whose transmission signals were used to control the card so that it would block channels for which no fee had been paid. Taping over the contact prevented the blocking signal from reaching the card, which in turn allowed the user to use all channels for free. A similar approach was used in public telephony systems – if the contact used to reduce the card’s value was dirty or bent, the number of pulses stored on the card remained the same, regardless of their usage. Today, few cards on the market are susceptible to
such simple types of attacks.
The article comes from the magazine “e-Fakty” 3/2006.