Senate ID Cards Use A Photo Of A Chip Rather Than An Actual Smart Chip

from the security-by-stupidity dept

Our government isn't exactly known for its security chops, but in a letter sent recently from Senator Ron Wyden to two of his colleagues who head the Committee on Rules & Administration, it's noted that (incredibly), the ID cards used by Senate Staffers only appear to have a smart chip in them. Instead of the real thing, some genius just decided to put a photo of a smart chip on each card, rather than an actual smart chip. This isn't security by obscurity, it's... bad security through cheap Photoshopping. From our Senate.

Moreover, in contrast to the executive branch's widespread adoption of PIV cards with a smart chip, most Senate staff ID cards have a photo of a chip printed on them, rather than a real chip. Given the significant investment by the executive branch in smart chip based two-factor authentication, we should strongly consider issuing our staff real chip-based ID cards and then using those chips as a second factor.

We asked the Senate if there was any way we could get a (heavily redacted, obviously) image of a Senate ID with the "photo" smart chip but (not at all surprisingly) that request was rejected. So, instead, we've got this artist's rendering of what something like it might look like, more or less.

Most of the letter (as the last sentence suggests), is about how the Senate barely uses two factor authentication, which is also kind of stunning. These days, two factor authentication is the absolute basic level necessary for anything that you want to keep moderately secure. That the Senate isn't doing this (and that it's faking smart chips) is preposterous. It's great that Senator Wyden is calling out the Senate IT staff for this very basic failing. I don't know for sure, but a lot about this letter makes me suspect that one Chris Soghoian is behind discovering the lack of a real smart chip and highlighting the lack of true two factor authentication (it's possible it's someone else, but it feels like a very Chris Soghoian thing to notice and call out...).

Filed Under: 2fa, chips, ron wyden, senate, smart card, two factor authentication