Capture the Tag
Are RFID tags in danger of being hacked?
Last year, when German consultant Lukas Grunwald announced at
the Black Hat Briefings & Training conference in Las Vegas that
his new software, RFDump, could rewrite information on RFID tags, the
retail community got nervous. Could RFID tags be hacked?
Not likely, says Bert Moore, director of IDAT Consulting &
Education, a Pittsburgh technology consulting firm. He asserts
that Grunwald's claims are overstated.
"Some pallet and carton labels can be rewritten or have
data appended," says Moore. "But there are provisions to
lock key data so it cannot be overwritten." That negates the
claim that RFDump can be used to change price codes. Moore adds
that RFDump works with read/write tags, rather than the more
commonly used read-only EPC tags.
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If you're worried about security, Moore suggests training
cashiers to be alert for RFID tags that "don't look
right." If the scanner registers an inappropriate price or the
tag looks like it's been tampered with, check the product
information manually.
Moore maintains that RFID tags will soon offer real benefits to
small retailers. "When transportation companies begin reading
carton and pallet tags as shipments are loaded, transferred and
delivered, this could provide smaller retailers with the same level
of tracking that UPS and FedEx provide," he says. "Better
tracking will allow managers to better schedule work flow and
inventory."