Transportation

Groceries, Pets, Baggage May Soon be Infected With Computer Viruses

March 2006 By News Staff

According to researchers at Vrije University in Amsterdam, radio frequency identification tags (RFID) -- often implanted in pets and grocery items for quick identification -- are susceptible to computer viruses.

According to a release from Vrije University, Melanie Rieback and her supervisor Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum have found a way of placing a computer virus onto a RFID tag. This was previously considered impossible because of the limited memory capacity of the tags. Rieback gave a demonstration of her discovery on Wednesday 15 March at the annual IEEE Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications in Pisa.

According to the release, one infected RFID tag is capable of disrupting an entire system with disastrous consequences. In May, 2006, for example, Las Vegas airport will attach RFID tags to speed baggage handling. If someone intentionally attaches an infected RFID tag to a case, the entire system could be thrown into disarray. As soon as the case is scanned, the infected tag will be able to invade the airport's central baggage database and all cases subsequently checked in will also become infected. On arrival at other airports, these cases will be scanned again and within 24 hours, hundreds of airports throughout the world could be infected.

Countermeasures

The threat of infection can be countered using standard measures, says Rieback, who says that developers must check their RFID systems, and implement safety procedures and secure program technology. Although these countermeasures will curb the threat posed by RFID viruses, said the release, extra time, money and effort will need to be spent on implementing them. It is therefore imperative that RFID system developers and users check the security of their systems now, before they are put to large-scale use.