Intel’s HDCP system cracked by researchers
November 30, 2011
Intel’s High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which is its copy protection system for audio and video, has been cracked by a German research team using off-the-shelf products, to prove that there are flaws in its encryption, reports MacWorld.
HDCP sits inside nearly every HDMI or DVI-compatible TV or computer flat screen. It serves to pass digital content from a protected source, such as a Blu-ray, to the screen via an encrypted channel. The entertainment industry has used the protocol for nearly a decade to prevent users from copying and pirating movies and games. It has been compromised for some time but only if hackers were able to replicate the chip.
However, researchers at the Secure Hardware Group of Germany’s Ruhr University of Bochum (RUB) have cracked Intel’s encryption protocol with a “man-in-the-middle” attack, using a o200 ATLYS board from the company Digilent and a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA.