The Chaos Computer Club claims it has cracked the encryption scheme of NXP's popular Mifare Classic RFID chip. Mifare is used in contactless smartcard applications, including fare collection, loyalty cards or access control cards.

The crack means that hackers can read out data, recharge payment cards, copy RFID cards or generate "new" users. The Mifare Classic family has a proprietary 48-bit encoding scheme which is apparently a lot easier to crack these days.

The spokesperson also pointed out that the Mifare Classic is not used in security-critical applications, such as passports or electronic health cards.