CAPEC-398 Magnetic Strip Card Brute Force Attacks

CAPEC ID: 398

CAPEC-398 Metadata

Likelihood of Attack

High

Typical Severity

Medium

Overview

Summary

An adversary analyzes the data on two or more magnetic strip cards and is able to generate new cards containing valid sequences that allow unauthorized access and/or impersonation of individuals.

Prerequisites

The ability to calculate a card checksum and write out a valid checksum value. Some cards are protected by a checksum calculation, therefore it is necessary to determine what algorithm is being used to calculate the checksum and to employ that algorithm to calculate and write a new valid checksum for the card being created.

Potential Solutions / Mitigations

No specific solutions listed.

Related CAPECs

CAPEC ID Description
CAPEC-395 An attacker exploits security assumptions to bypass electronic locks or other forms of access controls. Most attacks against electronic access controls follow similar methods but utilize different tools. Some electronic locks utilize magnetic strip cards, others employ RFID tags embedded within a card or badge, or may involve more sophisticated protections such as voice-print, thumb-print, or retinal biometrics. Magnetic Strip and RFID technologies are the most widespread because they are cost effective to deploy and more easily integrated with other electronic security measures. These technologies share common weaknesses that an attacker can exploit to gain access to a facility protected by the mechanisms via copying legitimate cards or badges, or generating new cards using reverse-engineered algorithms.

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