Study says RFID tags are vulnerable to viruses
 

A group of European computer researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to insert a software virus into radio frequency identification tags, part of a microchip-based tracking technology in growing use in commercial and security applications.

In a paper to be presented Wednesday at an academic computing conference in Pisa, Italy, the researchers plan to demonstrate how it is possible to infect a tiny portion of memory in the chip, which can hold as little as 128 characters of information.

...

Neumann is the co-author of an article to be published in the May issue of the Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery on the risks of RFID systems. He said existing RFID systems were a computer security disaster waiting to happen.

He cited inadequate identification for users, the potential for counterfeiting or disabling tags, and the problem of weak encryption in a passport-tracking system being developed in the United States. But he said he had not previously considered the possibility of viruses and other malicious software programs.

An industry executive acknowledged that the companies that make computerized tracking systems faced potential security problems.

http://news.com.com/Study+says+RFID+...html?tag=st_lh

As if someone stealing your identity wasn't enough of a problem, now we'll need antivirus software for our passports and luggage... :rolleyes:

After uploading data into the RFIDs, can't they be set to be read-only?

Apparently not if this is an issue.

So, I wonder, is there a way to zap an RFID without hurting anything that contains it? If an RFID is an RF transceiver, it seems that good jolt of RF should fry the electronics pretty well, shouldn't it?

More technical details at http://www.rfidvirus.org/index.html, including examples, an academic paper, and (surprisingly) detailed descriptions of vulnarabilities and exploits.