Dutch Court Allows Research On Smart Card Vulnerabilities To Be Published
from the good-job dept
We recently wrote about how NXP Semiconductor (formerly Philips Semiconductor) was suing to try to stop the publication of some research that showed some vulnerabilities in its chips used in smart cards around the world. The vulnerability itself was already widely known (though NXP denied it for a while). The good news is that a judge has denied the request, and the research will be published as originally planned. The bad news is that NXP wasted quite a lot of time denying there was a problem instead of fixing the problem — and with this latest misguided legal stunt, made sure a lot more people knew about it.
Filed Under: obscurity, smart cards, vulnerabilities
Companies: nxp semiconductors
Comments on “Dutch Court Allows Research On Smart Card Vulnerabilities To Be Published”
Actually, I think it’s a very good thing NXP did. Because now everyone knows how insecure their products are. Products that have been used world-wide for all kinds of purposes. These chips will always have security flaws but now with all this publicity, no one can deny anymore that this problem doesn’t exist.
Sure, their lawyers wasted a lot of time on this. But the legal team is a completely different one than their development team. And it’s just good to know that although these companies will add some security, they can never guarantee 100% security.
Just don’t use them for something that’s more valuable than the time it would cost to investigate the leaks… 🙂