NFC & RFID Bio-Implants: For Fun and Profit

Presented at SAINTCON 2019, Oct. 24, 2019, 10 a.m. (60 minutes).

NFC/RFID bio-implants are potentially the next disruptive technology. Tiny chips that can communicate in the NFC or RFID standard are injected into a user's hands. With the melding of technology and human anatomy, implanted users can take advantage of this new field using it for information storage, authentication, and information access. Last year at Defcon, the authors were implanted with NFC and RFID devices to do some hands-on (literally) research into using embedded (literally) NFC/RFID bio-implants for fun and profit. We looked at everything from paying with the implant, to getting unlimited plays at video arcades. We also examined using the implants as an attack surface. We will show our research into using NFC and RFID implants to gain access to certain electronics. We will discuss several failed attempts at using implants as an attack vector. Finally, a method will be presented that demonstrates how a person implanted with an NFC chip can get access to a phone by merely holding it.


Presenters:

  • Jason Gale
    Jason started his hacking career in high school where he would reverse engineer the software to remove the copy protection on Commodore-64 games enabling him to distribute them to his friends. He eventually got a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering so he could "use his powers for good". He has worked for the military and the intelligence community doing vulnerability research on multiple types of systems. Currently he works at Sandia National Labs where he is focused on developing methods of protecting electronic systems, especially those going in nuclear weapons. He also has a patent in protecting electronic systems. KERNEL

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