The 2008 Pwnie Nominee For Lamest Vendor Response

NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors)

Lawsuit against researchers who broke the Mifare Classic smart cards

NXP has sued Radboud University Nijmegen (in the Netherlands), to block publication of a research paper, “Dismantling Mifare Classic”, detailing an attack against the RFID chips used in many public transport systems around the world.

The response from Transport of London to the news of successful cloning of Oyster cards includes this priceless comment:

This was not a hack of the Oyster system. It was a single instance of a card being manipulated.

Update: This story has a happy end with the lawsuit being dismissed by a Dutch court on July 18, 2008.