Current state of EV1 cloning

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My work recently issued new ID cards that have MIFARE DESFire EV1 capabilities. After doing research on the web and this forum I have some to the following conclusions and would like to see if I missed anything.

My ultimate goal would be to clone my card so that I can just use a hand chip to authenticate. It seems like my three options in theory are the xDF2, Spark, and the flexDF.

The flexDF is out for me personally as I don’t want to choose a solution that would require removal for medical scans ( I also think this may have the same problems with UID spoofing as the xDF2 but I haven’t looked into it much.)

Documentation on the spark is… lacking; you can’t see into the app without a chip so I’m not sure if it provides the functionality I need.

The final solution is to clone the EV1 onto the xDF2 which seems technically possible as the EV1 protocol is trivial to crack with the miLazyCracker, however in an older post on the forum it sounds like typically the only thing that is used in commercial setups is the UID field which is not changeable on the xDF2.

Do I understand the situation with the xDF2 correctly and/or does the Spark provide card emulation that would let me use an implanted chip to authenticate? Also is there a way I can see what the reader at work is looking for on the card for example with a Chameleon or something similar? Thanks for any advice.

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Hey @notanadmin

Other than the xG3, we have no evidence to indicate that any of the implants sold by DT cause issues with medical scans, MRI or otherwise. If any implants were going to present an issue, it would more likely be the glass tag implants like the xDF2 because they have a core of soft iron. The flex series implants have a near zero likelihood of interacting with an MRI because the copper antenna is not magnetic and has an air core.

AFAIK no HF implants allow cloning except the old xM1s, which only worked as the MIFARE Classic configuration, not DESFire. It sounds like you’ll need to convince a system admin at your work to enroll your implant as if it was a new card.

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Awesome thanks, I thought the film chips were not MRI safe since they didn’t have the drop down info tab about it. I guess I’ll have to stop by and see if they would be willing to register a new device at work.

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