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In a bid to increase security and make document forgery more difficult the United States plans to start issuing new e-Passports, complete with a built-in RFID chip, in October. However, despite the government’s assurance that the data on the RFID chip is safe, at least one person has already devised a way to clone the chip.

The RFID chip embedded in the e-Passports will contain your personal identifiable information that immigration officials can use to verify your documented information. Unfortunately the data on the chip is not encrypted. Enter Lukas Grunwald, a security consultant and RFID expert. Grunwald says it took him only two weeks to figure out how to clone the passport chip, with most of that time devoted to simply learning the standards. Grunwald plans to demostrate his technique at the upcoming Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.

Previously: RFID passports are flawed

Official: Design of the New U.S. e-Passport (U.S. Department of the State)

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