United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

Report to Congressional Requesters

January 2010

BORDER SECURITY
Better Usage of
Electronic Passport
Security Features
Could Improve Fraud
Detection

GAO-10-96

 January 2010

BORDER SECURITY
Accountability Integrity Reliability

Highlights

Better Usage of Electronic Passport Security
Features Could Improve Fraud Detection

Highlights of GAO-10-96, a report to
congressional requesters

Why GAO Did This Study

What GAO Found

In 2005, the Department of State
(State) began issuing electronic
passports (e-passports) with
embedded computer chips that
store information identical to that
printed in the passport. By
agreement with State, the U.S.
Government Printing Office (GPO)
produces blank e-passport books.
Two foreign companies are used by
GPO to produce e-passport covers,
including the computer chips
embedded in them. At U.S. ports of
entry, the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) inspects passports.
GAO was asked to examine
potential risks to national security
posed by using foreign suppliers
for U.S. e-passport computer chips.
This report specifically examines
the following two risks: (1) Can the
computer chips used in U.S.
e-passports be altered or forged to
fraudulently enter the United
States? (2) What risk could
malicious code on the U.S.
e-passport computer chip pose to
national security? To conduct this
work, GAO reviewed documents
and interviewed officials at State,
GPO, and DHS relating to the U.S.
e-passport design and
manufacturing and e-passport
inspection systems and procedures.

State has developed a comprehensive set of controls to govern the operation
and management of a system to generate and write a security feature called a
digital signature on the chip of each e-passport it issues. When verified, digital
signatures can help provide reasonable assurance that data placed on the chip
by State have not been altered or forged. However, DHS does not have the
capability to fully verify the digital signatures because it has not deployed
e-passport readers to all of its ports of entry and it has not implemented the
system functionality necessary to perform the verification. Because the value
of security features depends not only on their solid design, but also on an
inspection process that uses them, the additional security against forgery and
counterfeiting that could be provided by the inclusion of computer chips on
e-passports issued by the United States and foreign countries, including those
participating in the visa waiver program, is not fully realized.
Protections designed into the U.S. e-passport computer chip limit the risks of
malicious code being resident on the chip, a necessary precondition for a
malicious code attack to occur from the chip against computer systems that
read them. GPO and State have taken additional actions to decrease the
likelihood that malicious code could be introduced onto the chip. While these
steps do not provide complete assurance that the chips are free from
malicious code, the limited communications between the e-passport chip and
agency computers significantly lowers the risk that malicious code—if
resident on an e-passport chip—could pose to agency computers. Finally,
given that no protection can be considered foolproof, DHS still needs to
address deficiencies noted in our previous work on its computer systems to
mitigate the impact of any malicious code that may be read from e-passport
computer chips and infect those systems.
Contents of the U.S. E-passport Computer Chip

Biographical data
• Name
• Date of birth
• Place of birth
• Gender
• Nationality
• Document number
• Expiration date

What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that DHS
implement the systems needed to
fully verify e-passport digital
signatures at U.S. ports of entry,
and in coordination with State,
implement an approach to obtain
the necessary data to validate the
digital signatures on U.S. and other
nations’ e-passports. DHS agreed
with our recommendations.
View GAO-10-96 or key components.
For more information, contact Dr. Nabajyoti
Barkakati at (202) 512-4499 or
barkakatin@gao.gov.

Biometric data
• Facial image
Security data
• Hash values
• Digital signature
• Document signer
certificate
Source: GAO analysis based on State Department information.

United States Government Accountability Office

 Contents

Letter

1
Background
E-passports Have Reasonable Safeguards to Assure That Computer
Chip Data Cannot Be Altered or Forged, but Ports of Entry Lack
the Capabilities to Use Them
Malicious Code Does Not Pose a Significant Risk to U.S. E-passport
Computer Chips or Federal Computer Systems That Read Them
Conclusions
Recommendations for Executive Action
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

21
33
34
34

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

36

Appendix II

Digital Signatures and Public Key Cryptography

38

Appendix III

Comments from the Department of Homeland
Security

43

Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

45

Figure 1: Gemalto E-passport Chip and Book Production Process
Figure 2: Infineon E-passport Chip and Book Production Process
Figure 3: Contents of the U.S. E-passport Computer Chip
Figure 4: Using Public Key Cryptography to Provide Data
Confidentiality
Figure 5: Using Public Key Cryptography to Provide Data Integrity
and Authentication
Figure 6: Creating a Digital Signature
Figure 7: Verifying a Digital Signature

9
10
15

Appendix IV

3

13

Figures

Page i

39
39
40
41

GAO-10-96 Border Security

 Abbreviations
ANSI
CBP
DHS
GPO
IC
ICAO
IT
NIAP
NIST
NSA
PKI
RF
RFID
US-VISIT

American National Standards Institute
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Department of Homeland Security
Government Printing Office
integrated circuit
International Civil Aviation Organization
information technology
National Information Assurance Partnership
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Security Agency
public key infrastructure
radio frequency
radio frequency identification
United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator
Technology

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 United States Government Accountability Office
Washington, DC 20548

January 22, 2010
The Honorable Henry Waxman
Chairman
The Honorable John Dingell
Chairman Emeritus
Committee on Energy and Commerce
House of Representatives
The Honorable Bart Stupak
Chairman
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Committee on Energy and Commerce
House of Representatives
In 2005, the Department of State (State) began producing and issuing
electronic passports (e-passports). These new e-passports have an
embedded computer chip that stores information identical to that printed
in the passport, including the traveler’s name, date of birth, photo,
passport number, and passport expiration date. By comparing the
information contained on the chip with the information printed in the
passport, inspecting officials can more readily identify whether the photo
or the biographical information has been altered or counterfeited, which
provides greater assurance of the integrity of the passport.
State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs is responsible for the design and
issuance of passports, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspects the documents at
ports of entry to the United States. By agreement with State, the U.S.
Government Printing Office (GPO) produces blank e-passport booklets.
Among the many components that are used to make e-passport booklets,
GPO has contracts with two European companies to produce the
e-passport covers, including the manufacturing and inlaying of the
computer chips into the e-passport covers. Both European companies use
subcontractors in Asia for parts of the work. Concerns have been raised
that the use of foreign-produced computer chips introduces risks to the
integrity of the U.S. e-passport.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 In response to your request, this report focuses on potential risks to
national security posed by the use of foreign suppliers for U.S. electronic
passports. Specifically, it examines the following two risks: (1) Can the
computer chips used in U.S. e-passports be altered or forged to
fraudulently enter the United States? (2) What risk could malicious code
on the U.S. e-passport computer chip pose to national security?
To determine whether e-passport chips can be altered or forged so that a
traveler could fraudulently enter the United States, we interviewed
officials from State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs and reviewed State
Department policies, procedures, and guidance documents regarding the
public key infrastructure (PKI) used to protect the data on the e-passport
computer chip and assessed them against relevant International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) and National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) standards and guidelines. We interviewed officials at
one passport agency and reviewed systems documentation to understand
how U.S. e-passports are personalized. We determined the extent to which
information stored on U.S. e-passport computer chips is inspected at U.S.
ports of entry by interviewing DHS and CBP officials and reviewing
documentation regarding the systems and procedures used to inspect
e-passports at the ports of entry.
To determine whether malicious code on the e-passport chips poses a risk
to national security, we determined how U.S. e-passport computer chips
are manufactured and incorporated into the production of blank U.S.
e-passport booklets based on interviews with GPO and manufacturer
officials and reviews of GPO documentation. We met with officials from
NIST and the National Counterterrorism Center to determine the level of
threat that exists to U.S. e-passports. We interviewed GPO and State
officials and reviewed documentation that describes the U.S. e-passport
computer chip architecture and operations. We reviewed documents
governing the manufacturing of the blank e-passport covers. We identified
protections that have been designed into the e-passport computer chip as
well as controls that are in place to reduce the possibility of malicious
code on the e-passport computer chip.
Additional details on our scope and methodology can be found in
appendix I. We conducted this performance audit from June 2008 to
January 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to
obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings
and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Background

U.S. passports are official documents that are used to demonstrate the
bearer’s identity and citizenship for international travel and reentry into
the United States. Under U.S. law, the Secretary of State has the authority
to issue passports, which may be valid for up to 10 years.1 Only U.S.
nationals may obtain a U.S. passport, and evidence of citizenship or
nationality is required with every passport application. Federal regulations
list disqualifying situations under which U.S. citizens are not eligible for a
passport, such as those who are subjects of a federal felony arrest warrant.
The security of passports and the ability to prevent and detect their
fraudulent use are dependent upon a combination of well-designed
security features, solid issuance procedures for the acceptance and
adjudication of the application and the production of the document, and
inspection procedures that utilize the available security features of the
document. A well-designed document has limited utility if it is not well
produced or if inspectors do not utilize the security features to verify the
authenticity of the document.
In 2005, State began issuing e-passports, which introduced an enhanced
design and physical security features. GPO manufactures blank e-passport
booklets for State using a variety of materials from different suppliers.
Currently, GPO has two suppliers—Infineon and Gemalto—under contract
for the covers of the e-passports.2 These covers include the computer chip
embedded in the back cover that can communicate using contactless ID
technology. Security-minded versions of this technology are employed in
contactless smart cards used in applications such as automatic banking
and identification. As of February 1, 2009, the State Department had issued
over 30 million e-passports.

1

A tourist passport, for individuals 16 years or older, is valid for 10 years from the date of
issuance; it is valid for 5 years for younger travelers. An official passport, for federal
employees traveling on official government business, and a diplomatic passport, for
government officials with diplomatic status, are each valid for 5 years from the date of
issuance.

2

One contract was originally awarded to Axalto, which later merged with GemPlus to
create Gemalto.

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 Document Security
Features

To combat document fraud, security features are used in a wide variety of
documents, including currency, identification documents, and bank
checks. Security features are used to prevent or deter fraudulent alteration
or counterfeiting of such documents. In some cases, an altered or
counterfeit document can be detected because it does not have the look
and feel of a genuine document. For instance, in U.S. passports, detailed
designs and figures are used with specific fonts and colors. While these
features are not specifically designed to prevent the use of altered or
counterfeit documents, inspectors can often use them to identify
nongenuine documents.3
Security features of travel documents are assessed by their capacity to
secure a travel document against the following threats:
•

counterfeiting—unauthorized construction or reproduction of a travel
document,

•

forgery—fraudulent alteration of a travel document, and

•

impostors—use of a legitimate travel document by people falsely
representing themselves as legitimate document holders
While security features can be assessed by their individual ability to help
prevent the fraudulent use of the document, it is more useful to consider
the entire document design and how all of the security features help to
accomplish this task. Layered security features tend to provide improved
security by minimizing the risk that the compromise of any individual
feature of the document will allow for unfettered fraudulent use of the
document. While most security features in the U.S. e-passport are physical
features, the introduction of the computer chip also allows for the use of
electronic security features.

Inspection of Travel
Documents to Enter the
United States

In general, at ports of entry, travelers seeking admission to the United
States must present themselves and a valid travel document, such as a
passport, for inspection to a CBP officer. The immigration-related portion
of the inspections process requires the officer to confirm the identity and

3

We previously reported on security features of State-issued travel documents, including
e-passports, in GAO, Border Security: Security of New Passports and Visas Enhanced,
but More Needs to Be Done to Prevent Their Fraudulent Use, GAO-07-1006 (Washington,
D.C.: July 31, 2007).

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 determine the admissibility of the traveler by questioning the individual
and inspecting the presented travel documents. In the first part of the
inspection process—primary inspection—CBP officers inspect travelers
and their travel documents to determine whether they should be admitted
or referred for further questioning and document examination. If
additional review is necessary, the traveler is referred to secondary
inspection—in an area away from the primary inspection area—where
another officer makes a final determination to admit the traveler or deny
admission for reasons such as the presentation of a fraudulent or
counterfeit passport.

E-passport Computer Chip
Construction and
Communication

The chips used in the U.S. e-passports are integrated circuits (IC) that are
essentially complete computers that contain a central processing unit,
various types of memory, and other components that perform specialized
functions such as random number generation and advanced cryptographic
processing. The chips contain both hardware and software. The hardware
circuitry and the operating system are implanted into the various layers of
the chip in a process called photolithography, which employs a technique
called masking wherein the chip’s circuitry is defined on a series of glass
plates called the photomask. The photomask is used as a template to
transfer the pattern of the chip’s electronic components into the various
layers of the physical chip. Once implanted, the circuitry is considered
permanent and not changeable except through physical attack.
While the chip’s operating system is implanted into the chip through the
photomask at chip creation time, other software needed on the chip—for
example, the traveler data—are written to the chip later, during
personalization of the chip.
The e-passports are designed as contactless proximity cards, and
communication with the embedded chip is only via a radio frequency (RF)
link established according to standard methods with a device generally
called a reader. To support global acceptance and interoperability of
e-passports, ICAO issued standards that define how data are to be stored
on and read from e-passports, including the RF communications.4
According to the ICAO standards, contactless communication with the

4
ICAO, Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part 1 Machine Readable Passports, Volume
2 Specifications for Electronically Enabled Passports with Biometric Identification
Capability, ICAO 9303 Part 1, Sixth Edition (2006).

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 e-passport is governed by ISO/IEC 14443, an international standard that
defines the transmission protocol used to transfer data between the reader
and the chip.5 Higher-level reading from and writing to the chip is
implemented through the ISO/IEC 7816-4 command set.6 ISO 7816-4 is an
international standard set of commands used to communicate with the
chip and to control all reading from and writing to the chip based on a
strict command/ response scheme. The reader initiates all commands to
the chip and the chip provides the expected response. The chip itself
cannot initiate any communications with the reader. ISO 7816-4 includes
controls to limit read and write access to the chip to authorized parties.
The United States issues e-passports with both ISO/IEC type A and type B
interface connections. Both types use the same transmission protocol, but
vary in how communications are established between the chip and the
reader and in how information is encoded for transmission.
The chip has no onboard power, but instead pulls the energy it needs from
the electromagnetic field emitted by the reader. The e-passport antenna
receives the electromagnetic energy from the reader and converts it to
electric current to power the chip. The chip can be powered and
communicate only when it is in close proximity—up to about 10
centimeters—to an appropriate reader.7 With both types of chips, the
antenna is a component external to the chip and separately attached to it
as part of the overall book cover manufacturing process.

The Software Contents of the
Chip

While the communication protocols and command set are standardized,
the operating system and other software used on the chips are vendorspecific. As is typical with smart card ICs, the software on the e-passport
chips is partitioned into three general areas: the IC dedicated software, the
basic embedded software, and the application embedded software. The IC
dedicated software contains software used for testing purposes and
software to provide other services to facilitate usage of the hardware on

5

The ISO/IEC 14443 standard is composed of four parts, covering physical characteristics,
radio frequency power and signal interface, initialization and anticollision procedures, and
transmission protocols.
6

ISO/IEC, Identification cards—Integrated circuit cards, Part 4: Organization, security
and commands for interchange, ISO/IEC 7816-4, Second Edition (Jan. 15, 2005).
7

With special equipment and under certain circumstances, the read distance can be
increased somewhat.

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 the IC. The IC dedicated software is developed by the IC manufacturer and
it is part of the photomasks of the chips.
The basic embedded software is typically not provided by the chip
manufacturer, but is usually developed by a third party and delivered to
the chip manufacturer for incorporation into the chip’s photomask. An
important component of the basic embedded software is the operating
system for the chip. The operating system implements the ISO 7816-4
command set and controls all communication between the chip and the
outside world.
The third major partition of software on the chip is the application
embedded software, which is also typically provided by a third party and
provides functionality specific to the particular application for which the
chip is intended to be used. In the case of the U.S. e-passports, the
application software is data contained in a file layout using an open, ICAOspecified logical data structure used for machine-readable travel
documents.

The E-passport Production
Process

In producing e-passport booklets for State, GPO has tapped into the
existing global smart card industry, resulting in a wide number of different
companies involved in the e-passport chip production and inlay process.
Two separate companies were awarded contracts to supply chips for the
U.S. e-passports. Infineon, a German company, fabricates its own chips
and embeds a commercial operating system from a third-party company
on them. Gemalto, a Dutch company, obtains chips from NXP, a Dutch
semiconductor manufacturer. Gemalto provides NXP with its own
operating system, which NXP embeds within the chip prior to shipping the
chip to Gemalto.
Although each of these contractors takes a different path to create and
provide e-passport covers to GPO, both use a common subcontractor for
attachment of the antenna to the chip and the inlaying of the chip into the
back cover of the e-passport booklet. GPO itself finishes production of the
e-passport booklet by inserting the paper pages into the covers, installing a
metal strip down the inside spine for RF shielding, and, in a process
termed pre-personalization, preparing the chip for use by the State
Department. State personalizes the e-passport by printing bearer data onto
the data page and writing digital data onto the chip as part of its issuance
procedures.

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 Gemalto E-passport Chip and
Booklet Production Process

As seen in figure 1, several steps are involved in the production of an
e-passport using Gemalto’s e-passport booklet. Gemalto involves several
subcontractors to produce the cover before it is delivered to GPO. For
instance, while the operating system software is created by Gemalto, it is
implanted on the chip when it is fabricated by NXP. Companies overseas
are also involved in the production of the chip and its incorporation into
the e-passport cover.
In pre-personalization, GPO tests and formats the chips, preparing them
for personalization by State, and finishes overall construction of the
e-passport booklet. GPO then ships the finished, blank e-passport books to
the 21 State Department passport issuing offices around the country that
then personalize and issue them to U.S. citizens, as needed.8

8

State has 19 domestic passport agencies and centers that accept, examine, adjudicate, and
process passport applications; they issue passports to those determined to be citizens or
nationals of the United States. State also has two domestic passport personalization
facilities that produce and issue the passports once one of the passport centers or agencies
has approved the passport application.

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 Figure 1: Gemalto E-passport Chip and Book Production Process
Photomask data generation
Hardware and software photomask is created
Vendor

Photomask production
Mask is etched onto glass plates
Vendor

Wafer fabrication
Wafer is fabricated
Vendor

Wafer bump
Antenna attachment point is added
Vendor

Wafer test and treatment
Wafer grinding, test, and sawing
Vendor

Assembly, module test, and treatment
Package assembly and final test
Vendor

Distributing
Transit stop
Vendor

Antenna attachment and inlay into book
Antenna and chip set in back cover
Vendor

Secure storage
Vendor

Test and pre-personalization formatting
Test and format chip, assemble blank book
GPO

Personalization and issuing
Personalize and issue e-passports
State Department
Source: GAO analysis based on GPO and Gemalto information.

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 Infineon E-passport Chip and
Book Production Process

Similar to Gemalto’s production process, the production process at
Infineon also involves several subcontractors to produce the booklet cover
before it is delivered to GPO (see fig. 2). The operating system and other
embedded software used on the Infineon chips are developed by a thirdparty company, and shipped to Infineon for incorporation into the
photomask pattern. As with the Gemalto production process, GPO tests
and pre-personalizes each chip, finishes the books, and distributes the
finished, blank e-passport books to the 21 passport-issuing offices.
Figure 2: Infineon E-passport Chip and Book Production Process
Photomask data generation
Hardware and software photomask is created
Vendor

Photomask production
Mask is etched onto glass plates
Vendor

Wafer fabrication
Wafer is fabricated
Vendor

Preassembly, assembly, and test
Wafer thinning, die bonding, and wire bonding
Vendor

Antenna attachment and inlay into book
Antenna and chip set in back cover
Vendor

Contactless test and inspection
Final test
Vendor

Test and pre-personalization formatting
Test and format chip, assemble blank book
GPO

Personalization and issuing
Personalize and issue e-passports
State Department
Source: GAO analysis based on GPO and Infineon information.

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 Threats to E-passport
Computer Chips

Since 1997, GAO has identified federal information security as a high-risk
area.9 Malicious code is one of the primary threats to federal information
security. NIST defines malicious code—sometimes called malware—as “a
program that is inserted into a system, usually covertly, with the intent of
compromising the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the victim’s
data, applications, or operating system or of otherwise annoying or
disrupting the victim.”10 Malicious code can be used for many purposes
and come in many forms. For example, malicious code might be designed
to delete files on a system or repeatedly attempt access to a system service
and thus effectively shut it down. The effects of malicious code can range
from performance degradation to compromise of mission-critical
applications. Some common forms of malicious code include viruses,
worms, and Trojan horses. Viruses infect a system by attaching themselves
to host programs or data files. Worms are self-contained programs that can
self-replicate and do not require human interaction to spread through a
system or network. Trojan horses are nonreplicating programs that appear
benign but are designed with a malicious purpose.
Malicious code often takes advantage of vulnerabilities in a system’s
software to either spread or execute. For example, a common
vulnerability, known as a buffer overflow, redirects system control to a
malicious program through badly designed software. Inadequate controls
on a network’s connections or services are another common vulnerability
that allows malicious code to spread. Common protections against
malicious code include input checking at the boundaries of a system, such
as at external interfaces to a system; network controls to lower the
possibility that malicious code could spread within a system; and patch
management to address vulnerabilities in the system’s software that
malicious code can exploit.
In general, a successful malicious code attack first requires that the
malicious code get into a system. This can occur, for example, by inserting
infected media into the computer or through incomplete controls on the
system’s network connections. Second, the malicious code needs to
spread to those areas of a system to which it wants to cause damage.
Malicious code can spread in many ways, including various network
protocols and services and also in simple file transfers. Finally, malicious

9

GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-09-271 (Washington, D.C.: January 2009).

10

NIST, Guide to Malware Incident Prevention and Handling, SP800-83 (Gaithersburg,
Md.: November 2005).

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 code needs to be executed, often by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in
a system’s software.
Therefore, in the case of e-passports, a successful malicious code attack
from the chip would first require that malicious code get on the chip.
Second, that it get transferred from the chip onto agency computers
during the e-passport inspection process and then spread to vulnerable
areas within those systems. And, finally, the malicious code would have to
be executed.
Although communication with the chips is designed to be via the
contactless ID interface that complies with the ISO 7816-4 standard, which
includes an authentication procedure to limit read and write access to the
chip to authorized parties, an alternate, illicit way data can be attempted to
be read from or written to the chip is through physical tampering
techniques. In general, the aim of such an attack is to discover confidential
data stored on the chip—such as cryptographic keys—which can be used
to open access to the chip via the contactless interface.

Common Criteria

Common Criteria is an international standard method for evaluating
security features of information technology (IT) components. The U.S.
portion of this effort is coordinated through a partnership of NIST and the
National Security Agency (NSA) called the National Information
Assurance Partnership (NIAP). It provides a framework for evaluating
security features of IT components. The Common Criteria program
evaluates commercial-off-the-shelf information assurance and information
assurance-enabled products. These products can be items of hardware,
software, or firmware. Evaluations are performed by accredited Common
Criteria testing laboratories whose results are then certified by a validation
body. A product is considered Common Criteria certified only after it is
both evaluated by an accredited laboratory and validated by the validation
body.
Common Criteria certifications are expressed in a seven-step assurance
scale called Evaluation Assurance Levels. The seven ordered levels
provide an increasing measure of confidence in a product’s security
functions. All evaluated products that receive a Common Criteria
certificate appear on a validated products list, which is available on the
Common Criteria Web site.
To facilitate the efficient use of testing resources, an international
agreement was developed under which one country’s Common Criteria

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 certifications would be recognized by the other participating countries.11
This is intended to eliminate unnecessary duplication of testing efforts.
Common Criteria certifications need to be carefully considered. We have
reported previously that the fact that a product appears on the validated
products list does not by itself mean that it is secure.12 A product’s listing
on any Common Criteria validated products list means that the product
was evaluated against its security claims and that it has met those claims.
The extent to which vendor-certified claims provide sufficient security for
a given application is another question.

E-passports Have
Reasonable
Safeguards to Assure
That Computer Chip
Data Cannot Be
Altered or Forged, but
Ports of Entry Lack
the Capabilities to
Use Them

A complex environment has been established to provide reasonable
assurance that the data contained on electronic passports can be used to
help determine whether an individual should be admitted to the United
States. The overall control environment depends on each party effectively
implementing the controls that have been established to govern its
operation and utilize the controls implemented by the other agencies.
State uses a technology commonly referred to as public key cryptography
to generate digital signatures on the data it writes to the computer chips
on the e-passport. These digital signatures, when effectively implemented,
can help provide reasonable assurance that integrity has been maintained
over the data placed on the chip by State. Our review found that DHS has
not implemented the capabilities needed to completely validate the digital
signatures generated by State before relying on the data, which adversely
affects its ability to obtain reasonable assurance that the electronic data
provided in a chip were the same data that State wrote in the e-passport.
While DHS has some controls that somewhat mitigate this weakness, it
does little to ensure that altered or forged electronic data can be detected.
Accordingly, until DHS implements this functionality, it will continue to
lack reasonable assurance that data found on e-passport computer chips
have not been fraudulently altered or counterfeited.

11

Thirteen countries are recognized as certificate producers under the Arrangement on the
Mutual Recognition of Common Criteria Certificates in the Field of IT Security: the United
States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,
Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

12

GAO, Information Assurance: National Partnership Offers Benefits, but Faces
Considerable Challenges, GAO-06-392 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 24, 2006).

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 State Generates Digital
Signatures That Can Be
Used to Provide Needed
Assurance

ICAO has issued e-passport standards that have been adopted by the
United States and other countries.13 As part of its specifications for
e-passports, ICAO requires the use of digital signatures and a public key
infrastructure to establish that the data contents of the computer chip are
authentic and have not been changed since being written. A PKI—a system
of hardware, software, policies, and people—is based on a sophisticated
cryptographic technique known as public key cryptography. The use of a
PKI for e-passports primarily serves to provide (1) data integrity (the
electronic data placed on the passport have not been changed), and (2)
authentication (the country issuing the e-passport was the source of the
data). In its standards, ICAO specifies only the use of well-known
cryptographic algorithms for use in e-passports.
As discussed in appendix II, public key cryptography is used to generate
and validate digital signatures. In particular, the “public key” is used to
validate the digital signature that is used to authenticate the data being
signed. However, a means is necessary for the user to reliably associate a
particular public key with a document signer. The binding of a public key
to a document signer is achieved using a digital certificate, which is an
electronic credential that guarantees the association between a public key
and a specific entity.14
In agreement with ICAO standards for e-passports, State generates and
writes a digital signature on the chip of each e-passport during the
personalization process. As illustrated in figure 3, State stores the
following information on the e-passport computer chip: biographical
information about the traveler, the traveler’s facial image, and security
data. The biographical data and facial image are organized into data
groups for storage on the e-passport. Each data group is condensed using
a hashing algorithm and the resulting hash values are stored in the security
data.15 A digital signature is generated on these hash values, which
represent the data stored on the e-passport computer chip. Hence, the
security data on an e-passport consist of three key elements: the data

13

ICAO 9303, Part 1, Volume 2.

14

A digital certificate is created by placing the entity’s name, the entity’s public key, and
certain other identifying information in a small electronic document that is stored in a
directory or other database. Directories may be publicly available repositories kept on
servers that act like telephone books for users to look up others’ public keys.

15

A hash is created using a special one-way cryptographic algorithm that is designed to
process an input file to produce a unique condensed fixed-length message digest.

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 group hash values, the digital signature, and the certificate needed to
validate the digital signature. This certificate—known as the document
signer certificate—is associated with a digital signature on a U.S.
e-passport’s data and is used to validate that the signed data contained in
that passport were actually generated by State. The keys and certificates
associated with U.S. e-passports are established in a hierarchical manner
to establish a “chain of trust” that a third party, such as DHS, can use to
obtain reasonable assurance that the data contained in the passport are
the data that were actually written on to the e-passport by State.
Figure 3: Contents of the U.S. E-passport Computer Chip
Biographical data
• Name
• Date of birth
• Place of birth
• Gender
• Nationality
• Document number
• Expiration date
Biometric data
• Facial image

Security data
• Hash values
• Digital signature
• Document signer
certificate
Source: GAO analysis based on State Department information.

State has developed a comprehensive set of controls to govern the
operation and management of the PKI that generates the digital signatures
used to help assure the integrity of the passport data written to the chip.
These controls include the development of policies and practices that are
consistent with best practices described in federal guidelines. For
example, State’s policies and procedures for generating and storing digital
signatures and certificates from cryptographic modules minimize the risk
of compromise or unauthorized disclosure. Further, State’s procedures
require the use of cryptographic modules validated against the level 3

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 criteria of FIPS 140-2, which is consistent with federal best practices and
requirements.16
If properly validated, the digital signatures on State’s e-passports should
provide those reading the chip data, including DHS, reasonable assurance
that the data stored on the chip were written by State and have not been
altered. Proper validation includes verifying that the document signer
certificate was issued by the State Department.

DHS Has Not Implemented
the Capability to Fully
Verify E-passport Digital
Signatures

In July 2007, we reported that DHS was not fully using a key security
feature of the U.S. e-passport—namely the data stored on the chip.17 At
that time, DHS had not fully deployed e-passport readers to all primary
inspection lanes at all ports of entry and did not have a schedule to do so.
We also reported that the implemented e-passport reader solution was not
capable of validating e-passport digital signatures, which would help to
ensure that the data written to the e-passport chips have not been altered.
Since that time, while DHS has begun planning an acquisition for new
e-passport readers, DHS has made no further deployments of e-passport
readers, nor has it implemented a solution that would allow for the full
verification of the digital signatures on e-passport computer chips.

DHS Has Not Fully Deployed
E-passport Readers to the Ports
of Entry

In 2006, as a part of the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status
Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) system, DHS deployed 237 e-passport
readers at 33 air ports of entry—212 are installed in primary inspection
lanes and 25 are installed in training areas.18 No e-passport readers are
deployed in secondary inspection areas. While these 33 air ports of entry
were chosen because they process the largest volume of travelers—about
97 percent—from Visa Waiver Program countries, the majority of lanes at
these airports do not have e-passport readers.19 Even though the same

16

NIST, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules, FIPS 140-2 (Gaithersburg, Md.:
May 25, 2001).
17

GAO-07-1006.

18

US-VISIT is a program designed to use biometric and biographic information to control
and monitor the pre-entry, entry, status, and exit of foreign visitors. US-VISIT’s goals are to
(1) enhance the security of U.S. citizens and visitors, (2) facilitate legitimate travel and
trade, (3) ensure the integrity of the U.S. immigration system, and (4) protect the privacy of
visitors.
19

Citizens of Visa Waiver Program countries are not required to obtain a U.S. visa to enter
the United States for business or tourism purposes for 90 days or less.

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 e-passport readers may be used to read U.S. e-passports, U.S. citizens are
primarily processed through lanes at these air ports of entry that are not
equipped with e-passport readers.
At equipped primary inspection lanes, CBP officers can use e-passport
readers to access the biographical information and digitized photograph
stored on the e-passport chip. To read e-passports, officers place the
biographical page of the e-passport on the reader’s glass plate. The reader
then electronically scans the biographical information printed on the page
and uses it to access the information stored in the e-passport’s chip. Once
the biographical data and photograph from the chip are displayed on the
primary inspection computer screen, the officer is to compare the
information displayed with the information on the biographical page of the
passport and verify that they match. The results of any validation activities
conducted on the data by the system are also presented to the officer. Any
mismatches could indicate fraud.
While a total of 500 e-passport readers were purchased by the US-VISIT
program. DHS has made no further deployments of e-passport readers
since 2006. Those not deployed are in storage, used for training, or used to
support system development activities. Following the deployment at the 33
air ports of entry in 2006, responsibility for deploying the e-passport
readers was shifted from the US-VISIT program to CBP. CBP officials
partially attributed the lack of progress in deploying e-passport readers to
its failure to allocate funding for the activity since it assumed the
responsibility from US-VISIT. According to DHS officials, the slower than
expected times to read data from e-passport chips also influenced its
decisions to not further the deployment of the e-passport readers.
In 2008, DHS transferred $11.4 million of no-year funds from US-VISIT to
CBP for planning, purchasing, and deploying e-passport readers at all CBP
primary processing lanes and secondary inspection areas at the ports of
entry. According to CBP officials, it is currently planning an acquisition for
new e-passport readers. As a part of the acquisition planning, CBP also
expects to determine whether it will replace the 500 currently deployed or
stored e-passport readers with new readers that will likely have better
performance than the current readers. According to DHS, CBP is planning
an e-passport reader procurement that will allow for the full deployment
of e-passport readers in fiscal year 2011.

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 In our prior work, we recommended that DHS develop a deployment
schedule for providing sufficient e-passport readers to U.S. ports of entry.20
With the identification of funding for the effort, CBP has initiated planning
for further deployment of e-passport readers, but has not yet developed a
deployment schedule. Until DHS installs e-passport readers in all
inspection lanes, CBP officers will not be able to take advantage of the
data stored on e-passport chips. For instance, without e-passport readers,
CBP officers are unable to read the photograph and biographic
information stored on the e-passport chip, information that would better
enable officers to detect many forms of passport fraud, including
impostors and the alteration or substitution of the photos and information
printed in the passports, and help to determine the traveler’s identity and
admissibility into the United States.

DHS Has Not Implemented the
Public Key Infrastructure
Needed to Verify E-passport
Digital Signatures

While DHS’s systems conduct some validation activities to ensure the
integrity of the data on the e-passport chip, it does not have adequate
assurance that the data stored on the chip have not been changed since
they were authored by a legitimate issuing authority—in the case of U.S.
e-passports, the State Department.
In primary inspection lanes that are equipped with e-passport readers,
CBP’s workstations conduct a series of checks using data read from the
e-passport computer chip, including the biographical data, the facial
image, and the security data. First, the CBP workstation verifies that the
biographical data read from the computer chip match that read from the
printed biographical page. Second, the CBP workstation calculates the
hash values of the data groups read from the computer chip and compares
them with the hash values stored in the security data. If available, the CBP
workstation will also use the digital certificate to verify the digital
signature. The expiration date of the e-passport and the digital certificate
are also checked. Finally, if the e-passport has been previously read by
CBP, the hash value of the facial image is compared with the value stored
by CBP. If this is the first time the e-passport has been encountered, the
hash value is stored for future comparisons. Any mismatches are to result
in an error being displayed to the CBP officer.
Further, in October 2008, DHS began to make U.S. passport data available
to CBP officers in primary inspection. DHS is now receiving U.S.-issued
passport data through a datashare initiative with the Department of State.

20

GAO-07-1006.

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 CBP has modified its workstations to retrieve this additional information
when U.S. passports, including e-passports, are processed. When CBP
officers enter U.S. passport data into appropriately configured CBP
workstations, the photograph of the traveler, as issued by the State
Department, will be displayed to the officer.21 As e-passports are issued by
State, the corresponding information is made available to DHS through the
datashare. State worked with DHS to transfer data on all valid historical
U.S. passports. As more historical U.S. passport information becomes
available, more photographs will be displayed to primary officers upon
processing a U.S. citizen through primary inspection.
However, the key step that is missing is that the CBP workstation does not
validate the legitimacy of the public key used to verify the digital
signature. Such a validation would provide assurance that the public key
in the document signer certificate was generated by the State Department.
Without this verification, CBP does not have reasonable assurance that the
e-passport data being protected by the digital signature were written by
the State Department because forgers or counterfeiters could simply
generate the keys necessary to digitally sign the forged data and include
their own certificate in the e-passport for verification purposes. Checking
the legitimacy of the certificate containing the public key that is used in
the digital signature validation process would effectively mitigate this risk.
When generated, the document signer certificates are themselves digitally
signed. However, CBP does not have access to the public keys necessary
to validate these digital signatures. While DHS tested the functionality of
storing and using this information to verify the certificates included by
State and other nations on e-passports using the CBP workstation, the
functionality was not implemented for operations because the
infrastructure to collect and maintain the international certificate database
did not exist. According to DHS officials, this function was a US-VISIT
requirement, but did not get implemented, in part, because a DHS
component that would be responsible for operating the public key
database was never identified. DHS officials also stated that the slow
performance of reading e-passports diminished the importance of
implementing this function.

21

According to CBP, it has updated its workstation software to display the additional
information when conducting primary inspections at airports and at pedestrian and vehicle
lanes at land ports of entry.

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 Not being able to check the legitimacy of the document signer certificates
affects not only CBP’s ability to verify the integrity and authenticity of the
data written to U.S. e-passport computer chips, but also its ability to verify
the integrity and authenticity of computer chip data on any country’s
e-passport. The United States requires all 35 participants in the Visa
Waiver Program to issue e-passports, and ICAO has estimated that over 50
countries issue e-passports. Because CBP does not have the necessary
information to fully validate the digital signatures that these countries
generate, it does not have reasonable assurance that data signed by those
countries were actually generated by the authorized passport issuance
agency for that country. Hence, it cannot ensure that the integrity of the
data stored on the e-passport’s computer chip has been maintained.
Two key issues need to be resolved for CBP to be able to rely on data
stored on e-passport computer chips. First, a database needs to be
established and populated with the digital certificates needed to fully
validate the digital signatures that can be accessed by CBP inspection
workstations at the ports of entry. An approach needs to be developed and
implemented to populate the database with the needed information,
including State Department data for U.S. e-passports, that can be used to
fully validate the digital signatures. According to ICAO, this information
should be distributed only through secure diplomatic channels.22 Second,
CBP needs to develop and implement functionality on its inspection
workstations to access the database when e-passport data are read to
verify that the legitimate passport-issuing authority signed the data being
relied upon. Until these two key issues are addressed, CBP will continue
to lack reasonable assurance that data found on e-passport computer
chips have the necessary integrity; hence, the security enhancements that
could be provided by e-passport computer chip data against counterfeiting
and forgery are not completely realized.

22

One source of certificate data could be the ICAO Public Key Directory. ICAO’s directory is
to include only document signer certificates that have been validated by ICAO. However,
there is not universal use of the ICAO Public Key Directory by e-passport-issuing countries.

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 Malicious Code Does
Not Pose a Significant
Risk to U.S.
E-passport Computer
Chips or Federal
Computer Systems
That Read Them

Protections designed into the U.S. e-passport computer chip limit the risks
of malicious code being resident on the chip, a necessary precondition for
a malicious code attack to occur from the chip against computer systems
that read them. GPO and State have taken additional actions to decrease
the likelihood that malicious code could be introduced onto the chip.
While these steps do not provide complete assurance that the chips are
free from malicious code, the limited communications between the
e-passport chip and agency computers significantly lowers the risk that
malicious code—if resident on an e-passport chip—could pose to agency
computers. As we previously discussed, the e-passport’s digital signature
can provide reasonable identification of unauthorized modification of the
user data areas—including modifications resulting from the introduction
of malicious code. Finally, given that no protection can be considered
foolproof, DHS still needs to address deficiencies noted in our previous
work on the US-VISIT computer systems to mitigate the impact of
malicious code, should it infect those systems.

U.S. E-passport Chip
Designs and
Manufacturing Processes
Limit Exposure to
Malicious Code

Security features designed into the e-passport computer chips, including
the digital signature, provide protections against the introduction of
malicious code onto the chip during the e-passport booklet production
process. For example, among other features, the chips include physical
tamper protections that aid in sensing or thwarting physical attacks, a
cryptographic authentication procedure to lock the contactless interface
against unauthorized access, and incorporation of a digital signature that
can be used to identify any unauthorized modification of the user data
areas.

Physical Tamper Protections
Help Ensure against Physical
Attacks on the Chip

As of 2007, NIST had not been able to identify any known cases of a
malicious code attack against a computer network from a contactless
chip.23 Nevertheless, both NIST and DHS agree that it is possible and have
generally identified physical tamper attacks as threats to embedded
electronic chips in contactless applications such as e-passports.
Physical tamper attacks involve stripping away the chip’s outer coverings,
exposing the electronic circuitry on the wafer, and analyzing or monitoring
chip activity by inserting electronic probes onto components etched into
the wafer. In general, the aim of such an attack is to discover confidential

23

NIST, Guidelines for Securing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Systems, SP80098 (Gaithersburg, Md.: April 2007), 4-7.

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 data stored on the chip—such as cryptographic keys—which can be used
to open access to the chip via the contactless interface. In terms of a
malicious code threat, the purpose then would be to write malicious code
onto the chip via the RF interface.
In its guide to chip-level security for contactless ICs, DHS identifies
common methods used in physical tamper attacks on contactless ICs.24 For
example, after removing top layers of plastic or other coverings and
uncovering the electrical surfaces of the chip, attackers could probe into
the various chip layers in an attempt to understand its processing.
Common methods of physical attack are those related to (1) fault
introduction, (2) IC monitoring, and (3) reverse engineering. The purpose
of each of these attacks is ultimately to uncover secret information—such
as cryptographic keys or passwords—that would allow an attacker to
open the chip for read/write access via the contactless interface. In fault
introduction, attackers attempt to introduce faults randomly, at specific
times during the processing, or in specific locations on the IC circuitry, to
gain additional information about the chip processing during such faults,
which could provide clues to the memory location of secret keys.
Similarly, such clues can be uncovered using IC monitoring, where readers
or probes placed on the chip’s internal circuitry are used to monitor
calculations or flows of data on the chip. Finally, attackers could attempt
to reverse engineer the computer chip to decipher its hardware
architecture and read the secret information.
In its guide, DHS identifies countermeasures for each of these types of
attack. For example, protections against fault introduction include
implementing sensors that detect when parameters, such as light or
temperature, vary outside of expected values. If such variations are
sensed, the chip may automatically reset or even disable itself. Protections
against IC monitoring might include encrypting the traffic flowing along
the internal circuitry so that interpretation would be difficult. Protections
against physical analysis include encrypting information stored in memory
and scrambling the design of the logic contained in the operating system
when laid down in memory during IC creation. Well-designed security
microcontrollers, with numerous security features and support for mutual
authentication and sophisticated cryptographic functions, can be designed

24

DHS Science and Technology Directorate, Chip-Level Security for RFID Smart Cards
and Tags.

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 to make it extremely difficult, costly, and time-consuming for attackers to
compromise.
In its solicitation for the e-passport covers, which included the computer
chips, GPO specified several hardware and software requirements to
protect against physical attack, including specific features to assist in
protection against power and timing attacks. It also included requirements
for sensors to monitor, for example, temperature and voltage variations,
which might be indicative of a physical tamper attack. The chips used in
the U.S. e-passports are considered security microcontrollers designed for
applications where security is an important consideration, such as
payment, identity, and secure access and, as such, they incorporate several
features against physical tamper attacks. Both types of chips used in the
e-passports have incorporated some recommended countermeasures for
all of the common categories of attack identified by DHS. For example, the
chips incorporate temperature and light sensors to monitor when those
operating conditions vary from expected values and employ memory
encryption against reverse engineering of the chip .
While it is not possible to provide complete protection against the more
invasive physical attacks, the goal is to make the cost of mounting such an
attack prohibitive. While the threat of physical attack to the embedded
chips in the e-passport cannot be completely discounted, the security
features incorporated into the microcontrollers in U.S. e-passports make a
physical tamper attack impractical.

Cryptographic-Based
Authentication Procedures
Control Contactless Access to
the Chip during Booklet
Production

During production of the e-passport covers, the manufacturers, their
subcontractors, and at GPO and State—or anywhere en route between
these sites—the chips are protected from unauthorized access through the
contactless interface by authentication procedures based on cryptography.
The manufacturing and personalization process for the e-passport booklet
is complex and involves many handoffs between different sites,
companies, and sometimes different countries. For example, while both
e-passport cover contractors originate chip manufacturing in Europe, they
also send the chips to various third-party companies in Asia for additional
manufacturing steps. The overall process can take almost 2 years from the
time the chip leaves the fabrication plant until it is finally issued by the
State Department to a bearer as part of an e-passport.
During the production life cycle of the e-passport book—from chip
creation at the chip manufacturers through to personalization by State—
contactless access to the chip is controlled by a symmetric cryptography

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 authentication procedure. Cryptographic algorithms provide different
measures of strength, depending on the algorithm and the overall length of
the keys involved. According to NIST estimates, the version used on the
e-passports can, at best, provide protection from a brute force attack until
2030.25
This locking mechanism not only controls access to the chip, but
differentially allows only certain functions to be performed.

Other Design and
Manufacturing Steps Help
Mitigate the Risk from
Malicious Code

Several other design features limit the chance that malicious code could
be placed on the chip. For example, according to GPO, an additional step
used to protect the e-passport chips from unauthorized access during the
manufacturing process takes advantage of standard industry practice to
not include customer identification with chips during production runs.
During the chip-manufacturing process, an anonymous cataloging scheme
is employed that makes it difficult to associate bulk lots of chips with their
destined applications. Therefore, on the production floor, it cannot be
determined which chips are to be used in U.S. e-passports.
In addition, after the chips are manufactured and incorporated into the
e-passport cover, steps are taken by GPO and State to protect the user
data areas of the chip from tampering. First, as part of its formatting
procedures to prepare the chips for personalization, GPO ensures that the
user data area is free from any data—including malicious code. During the
formatting of the user data area, if any memory cell is found to be
defective, then GPO discards the e-passport booklet. Therefore, any
malicious code successfully implanted within the user data area after
manufacture and through any of the chip’s travels through its production
cycle up until it arrived at GPO would be erased from the chip.
As we previously discussed, during the e-passport personalization process,
a digital signature is applied to the data to help assure the integrity and
authenticity of the data written to the chip. One of the benefits of the
digital signature is that any insertion of malicious code into, for example,
the bearer’s digital image would be caught, provided the digital signature
is fully and properly verified. Such a successful check would provide
reasonable assurance that malicious code has not been inserted into the
user data areas of the chip memory since it was personalized by State.

25

See NIST, Recommendation for Key Management—Part 1: General, SP 800-57
(Gaithersburg, Md.: March 2007).

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 Limited Communications
between the E-passport
Chip and Agency
Computers and Security
Certifications and Reviews
Mitigate Risks Posed by
Malicious Code

GPO and State have taken steps to gain confidence that their e-passport
computer chips are secure. While these steps do not provide complete
assurance that the chips are free from malicious code, the limited
communications between the e-passport chip and agency computers
significantly lowers the risk that malicious code that could be resident on
an e-passport chip could pose to agency computers. The chips have been
tested for both interoperability and conformance to ICAO specifications
and exercised by GPO as part of their formatting process. The chips have
undergone a formal, independent process to validate some aspects of their
security. GPO and State also periodically conduct security reviews of the
chip manufacturer sites.

Controls on the Interface
between the E-passport
Computer Chip and Agency
Computers Limit the
Opportunities for Transfer of
Malicious Code

One key feature that mitigates the risk that malicious code on the chip
could pose to agency computers is the highly restricted nature of the data
exchange between the chip and agency computers during the reading of
the e-passport. The e-passport computer chip adheres to ISO 14443 and
ISO 7816-4 for communications through the contactless interface. The
standards restrict the computer chip to a slave role whereby it responds
only to a specific set of commands with known and limited response data.
Because the chip cannot independently initiate communication with a
reader, the flow of data from the chip to the reader and host computer can
be precisely controlled and limited to only what is expected by the host
computer.
The result is that opportunities for the covert embedding of malicious
code within data transferred from the chip to agency computers are
correspondingly limited. For example, the passport number, bearer’s
name, and date of birth are data sets restricted to a well-defined set of
characters and are of fixed length. Consequently, if a reader accepts inputs
only within these bounds, it will limit the risk posed by malicious code.
The digital image of the bearer is the only data set transferred that is of
enough size to provide for opportunities to hide malicious code. The image
is formatted according to a standard graphics format that facilitates
integrity checking of its contents. According to DHS officials, when
e-passports are read, the data from the chip are verified both by the
e-passport reader as well as by the agency host computer before the data
are processed.
Testing Helps to Verify Proper Functioning of E-passport Chip
Communications
Prior to contract award, and at various points thereafter, the U.S.
e-passport chips have undergone testing for a variety of purposes.

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 According to GPO officials, the solicitation for the e-passport covers was
based on State Department requirements for specific functionality,
security, performance, and availability. For example, it included
requirements for the chip to meet ISO 14443 communications and ISO
7816-4 command set standards and other standard specifications. As part
of the award selection process, GPO, State, NIST, and NSA conducted
testing of sample books from each bidder to determine whether they
would meet requirements as specified in the request for proposal.
During pre-award testing, for example, GPO ran initial tests to ensure
basic functionality as specified by ISO 7816-4, including the ability to
initialize, read, write, and lock the chip. GPO also ensured that each
e-passport cover was of the correct form and thickness so that it could
mechanically pass through its production equipment suite. The sample
booklets then went to State, which conducted tests to ensure the books
could work with its personalization systems.
According to NIST officials, they performed electronic testing that looked
at the potential for eavesdropping, jamming, and remote activation
(skimming). For eavesdropping, the test was conducted to determine
whether the legitimate communication could be intercepted, but no
attempt was made to see if the encrypted communication could be
understood. For jamming, the purpose was to determine whether
legitimate communications with the chip could be prevented. For remote
activation, the purpose was to determine the distance from which a reader
could elicit a response from the chip, but no attempt was made to test the
basic access control or to read the data on the chip. NIST also conducted
different types of durability tests including static bend, dynamic bend,
climate, chemical resistance, physical protection of the integrated circuit
chip, and electromagnetic testing. None of NIST’s tests were designed to
test for the presence of malicious code on the chip. While the tests
exercised some portions of ISO 14443 and ISO 7816-4, NIST did not
conduct any tests to ensure full conformance with these standards.
NSA officials stated that they conducted electronic testing of the booklet,
but this was confined to radio frequency testing and shielding testing
specifically tasked by GPO to evaluate the susceptibility of the booklet to
skimming by looking at the distance over which the booklet’s chip could
become energized. NSA performed no substantive tests of communication
with the chip and no testing at all with regard to malicious code.
As part of GPO’s normal pre-personalization processing, GPO exercises
and tests each chip’s functionality to verify, among other things, the

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 correct reading and writing of every chip. GPO’s processing does not
systematically exercise every chip function or the full ISO 7816-4
command set and associated error handling. GPO officials said that while
they test the basic functionality of the chip as they proceed through the
pre-personalization processing, full ISO 14443 communications and ISO
7816-4 command set processing—including ensuring that all error
handling is performed correctly—is done as part of the international ICAO
interoperability and conformance tests held approximately every 2 years.
The State Department is the official U.S. representative to these tests,
although GPO frequently participates, by request, in support of State.
According to ICAO, the interoperability and conformance tests are
intended to accomplish two things. First, they ensure that e-passports
from different countries can be read by readers provided by multiple
vendors. Second, they ensure compliance with various aspects of the ISO
14443 communication and ISO 7816-4 command set standards. The U.S
e-passport chips have been part of some of the interoperability and
conformance tests that have been run in the last several years.26
All these tests provide important assurances for their stated purposes by
exercising functionality, in particular the limited e-passport chip
communications, that helps to protect against the risk of malicious code.
In general though, such testing is limited to verifying functionality and
cannot provide absolute assurance that malicious code has not been
implanted onto the e-passport computer chip.

Security Certifications and
Security Reviews Provide Some
Assurance That Computer
Chips Are Free from Malicious
Code

The creation of the computer chip used in U.S. e-passports is a complex
process that involves many components created by different entities.
Because the U.S. government does not control the entire supply chain for
all the components on the chip, it relies on security features provided by
the chip component suppliers, the extent to which these suppliers test and

26

According to GPO officials, because of competitive pressures within the smart card
industry, the chip manufacturers will often modify their chips to enhance their processing.
These changes may involve chip circuitry changes, for example, to increase the speed of
the chip’s processing. Sometimes the chip operating system needs to be modified as well to
mesh with the circuitry changes. GPO officials stated that State generally likes to take
advantage of these enhanced chips and use them if it can. Therefore, sometimes the chip
manufacturer will deliver samples of enhanced chips that GPO will evaluate separately
from the production line. If agreed to by the Configuration Change Board—on which both
State and GPO sit—the enhanced version of the chip may be folded into production. In
those cases where a chip change is significant, it may trigger the need to participate in the
full ICAO interoperability and conformance testing. Revalidation with NIST and others
could also be needed.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 certify their products, and the extent to which these suppliers develop and
produce the chips in a secure manner.
Some Aspects of the Security of the Chips Were Certified Using
Common Criteria
NIST guidelines state that federal agencies should give substantial
consideration in IT procurements to products that have been evaluated
and tested by accredited laboratories against appropriate security
specifications and requirements.27 One established mechanism for
providing security evaluation and testing services for commercial-off-theshelf hardware, software, or firmware is Common Criteria. Common
Criteria certifications are a well-known international standard mechanism
for validating and documenting various security aspects of IT products.
Evaluations are performed by accredited Common Criteria testing
laboratories whose results are then certified by a validation body. In the
case of the chips used in the U.S. e-passports, selected security features of
their hardware components were evaluated using Common Criteria by a
recognized European laboratory and certified by Germany’s Common
Criteria certification body.
In its solicitation for the e-passport covers, including the computer chips,
GPO specified that preference will be given to computer chips that are
certified at Common Criteria EAL 4+ against a Common Criteria-compliant
Protection Profile.28 According to Common Criteria definitions, an EAL 4
rating is intended to provide a moderate to high level of independently
assured security. To achieve this rating, the testing lab must conduct a
variety of structured activities, including an analysis of the security
functions of the product using a complete interface specification and both
the high-level and low-level design of the specific features of the product
being tested, review and confirmation of any vendor testing that was
conducted, and conduct of an independent vulnerability analysis
demonstrating resistance to penetration attackers with a low attack
potential.

27

NIST, Guidelines to Federal Organizations on Security Assurance and Acquisition/Use
of Tested/Evaluated Products, SP800-23 (Gaithersburg, Md.: August 2000).

28

According to Common Criteria, a Protection Profile is an implementation-independent
statement of security needs for an IT product. A “+” designation on an EAL rating indicates
that security requirements beyond those specified in the Common Criteria standard were
included in the target of evaluation and also satisfied.

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 The computer chips selected for use in the e-passports each had received
an EAL 5+ rating against a compliant Protection Profile. According to
Common Criteria, an EAL 5 rating incorporates all of the EAL 4
requirements and, in addition, requires, among other things, semiformal
design descriptions, a more structured architecture, covert channel
analysis, and improved mechanisms that provide confidence that the
particular implementation of the product being evaluated has not been
tampered with during development. Specific security features evaluated to
achieve the EAL 5 rating include many useful in helping to prevent the
introduction of malicious code. Examples of these include support for
cryptographic functions, protections against physical manipulation, and
features to ensure correct operating conditions for the chip.
However, a key software component of the chip—the operating system—
was excluded from the evaluation. The operating system on the chip
implements and controls, among other functions, the ISO 7816-4 command
set that is the primary means of communication between the chip and the
outside world—including agency computers.
Under Common Criteria, it is not uncommon for critical components of a
product to be excluded for particular evaluations. In particular, the
exclusion of important software components, such as the operating
system, from the Common Criteria evaluation of hardware features is not
unusual because the higher-level software embedded on chips is often a
third-party product and not designed by the chip manufacturer itself. The
chip manufacturer is typically not responsible for undertaking a Common
Criteria evaluation of third-party embedded software used on its chips.
Typically, it would be up to the software provider to get its product
certified using Common Criteria. However, this is an expensive and timeconsuming process. Hence, care needs to be taken with Common Criteria
certifications that can be meaningfully understood only within the context
of the specific subset of security functions included in the evaluation.
We have previously noted that one of the challenges in using the National
Information Assurance Partnership is the difficulty in matching agencies’
needs with the availability of NIAP-evaluated products.29 According to
Infineon and Gemalto officials, back in 2006 when the request for proposal
for the e-passport covers was issued, there was no Protection Profile
available that covered the operating systems of such chips. Since that

29

GAO-06-392.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 time, however, Common Criteria operating systems suitable for use on
smart cards have become available. According to GPO officials, Infineon
provides such chips today, and GPO is in the process of transitioning them
into production so that, at least for the Infineon line, the e-passports will
include a Common Criteria-certified operating system.
The user operating system contains arguably most of the software
functioning on the chip. Therefore, obtaining assurance as to its secure
functioning and freedom from malicious code is an important activity.
However, given the highly restricted nature of the current communications
between the chip and agency computers, we do not see the lack of
Common Criteria certification of the chip operating system as significantly
increasing the risk to agency computers from malicious code.30
While Common Criteria certification confers some assurance regarding the
specific security functions included in the evaluation, care must be taken
in extending that assurance into confidence in the overall security of the
product for its intended use. GAO has previously reported that within its
limitations, the Common Criteria process provides benefits. However, the
lack of performance measures leaves questions unanswered as to its true
effectiveness.31 The use of commercial products that have been
independently tested and evaluated is only a part of a security solution
that contributes to the overall information assurance of a product.
GPO Has Conducted Reviews of the E-passport Computer Chip
Manufacturing Sites
Prior to contract award, and periodically thereafter, GPO—sometimes
accompanied by the State Department—conducted on-site security
reviews of the companies that manufacture the e-passport chips and the
covers, and of some of their subcontractors. According to GPO officials,
its reviews are concerned with not just security risks, but also with other
risks—for example, the extent to which a site performs continuity of
operations planning or the risk that a single source of supply for one of the
components might pose a risk to the delivery of the components. In

30

If the communications between the chip and agency computers were extended beyond
their current limited scope, the risk from malicious code on the chip would need to be
reevaluated. For future use, the ICAO specification does allow for additional data sets to be
passed across this interface, for example, fingerprint data and other biometrics.

31

GAO-06-392.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 conducting the security reviews, GPO officials stated that they make an
attempt to visit every vendor involved in the production of the e-passport
booklet, including, for example, the security ink suppliers, paper
providers, thread providers, and the chip providers. The sites are spread
across several countries, and within some countries there may be multiple
sites. For example, for both Infineon and Gemalto, production of the chips
involves several sites within Europe.
These reviews employ an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
standard for security product manufacturing that covers a variety of risk
areas, including information, IT, material, supply chain, physical intrusion,
personnel, and disaster recovery.32 For example, the standard addresses
such concerns as proper controlled access to restricted areas within a
facility. During the security review, GPO generally gets a high-level
briefing from the company and talks with staff at the site. According to
GPO officials, they have reviewed almost every site twice since March
2006. In recent security reviews of the chip manufacturing sites, both
Infineon and NXP were found to be in compliance with their own stated
security policies and meeting the Class 1 level of the ANSI standard.
From the security reviews, GPO can get some sense of some of the
protections in place at the development sites—for example, access control
to development areas and security awareness training. GPO learned
through its reviews, for example, that Gemalto has an access control
policy wherein development premises are divided into secure and
nonsecure zones, and the operating system development is in the secured
zone. This provides some assurance that since physical access to the
software destined for the chips is controlled, opportunities for the
inclusion of malicious code can be limited.

32

ANSI/NASPO, Security Assurance Standards for the Document and Product Security
Industry, ANSI/NASPO-SA-v3.0P-2005 (Washington, D.C.: March 2007).

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 To Further Mitigate the
Effect of a Malicious Code
Attack, DHS Needs to
Address Previously Noted
Weaknesses in US-VISIT
Computer Systems

Given that there can be no guarantees against a malicious code attack
originating from the e-passport computer chip, agency systems need to
have a strong security posture, in accordance with federal government
standards. We have previously reported on weaknesses in DHS’s US-VISIT
computer systems, which could increase the ability of malicious code to
infect and propagate through agency computers.33 Weaknesses, such as
unpatched software vulnerabilities, can invite a malicious code attack and
enhance the ability of the attack to spread across the network by leaving
important linkages within the network unprotected. DHS needs to address
these deficiencies to ensure that any malicious code resident on the
e-passport chip and read onto DHS computers can be contained and its
effect minimized.
One of the strong recommendations from NIST is that computer systems
run antivirus software, which scans systems’ files and memory spaces for
known malware. NIST strongly recommends the use of antivirus software
to identify and protect against malicious code. Detecting such code prior
to its further spread can limit a malicious code infection and protect
downstream systems. According to DHS officials, workstations that
control the interface with the chip are protected by antivirus software,
which includes access protections, buffer overflow protections, and
scanning of files as they are accessed.
One of the key weaknesses in US-VISIT that we found in 2007—patch
management—is of particular concern with respect to malicious code that
could be read from an e-passport. Malicious code often attacks systems by
exploiting vulnerabilities in operating systems, services, and applications.
When software vulnerabilities are discovered, the software vendor may
develop and distribute a patch or workaround to mitigate the vulnerability.
Patch management is, therefore, an important element in mitigating the
risks associated with malicious code and the vulnerabilities they depend
on. NIST’s, NSA’s, and DHS’s own policies stress the importance of
keeping computer systems up to date with security patches. Outdated and
unsupported software is more vulnerable to attacks and exploitation. NIST
guidelines state that applying patches is one of the most effective ways of
reducing the risk of malware incidents.34

33

GAO, Information Security: Homeland Security Needs to Immediately Address
Significant Weaknesses in Systems Supporting the US-VISIT Program, GAO-07-870
(Washington, D.C.: July 13, 2007).

34

NIST SP800-83.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 In our prior report, we noted that while DHS has taken steps to ensure that
patches for the workstations’ operating system were kept up to date, some
workstations at the ports of entry did not consistently maintain secure
configurations. As a result, vulnerabilities left unpatched on those systems
increase the chance of malicious code being executed should it get
ingested.35 According to DHS officials, they are in the midst of upgrading
workstations to a version of Microsoft Windows that contains features to
help prevent the execution of malicious code—for example, special
services to detect and prevent the execution of code from the data areas.
DHS needs to ensure that it completes the upgrade of the workstations
and that such services are enabled on workstations reading data from the
e-passport computer chips.

Conclusions

Ensuring the integrity of passports requires continual vigilance so that
they can continue to be used to support the critical border security
mission—facilitating the travel of those who are entitled to enter the
United States while preventing the entry of those who are not. A welldesigned passport has limited utility if it is not well produced or border
officers do not utilize the available security features to detect attempts to
fraudulently enter the United States. While U.S. e-passport covers,
including the embedded computer chip, are manufactured by foreign
companies, State’s public key infrastructure, which is used to generate
digital signatures during the personalization process for each issued
passport, can provide reasonable assurance that the data written onto the
chip were authored by State and have not been altered. However, DHS has
not implemented the capabilities needed for CBP officers to fully utilize
this security feature. Without e-passport readers at the ports of entry or a
system that allows for the full validation of digital signatures on
e-passports, CBP officers’ inspection of not only U.S. e-passports, but also
of e-passports issued by foreign countries, including those participating in
the visa waiver program, is affected. Without these capabilities, the
additional security against forgery and counterfeiting that could be
provided by the inclusion of computer chips on e-passports issued by the
United States and foreign countries, including those participating in the
visa waiver program, is not fully realized.

35

DHS has provided evidence to us that it has addressed some of the weaknesses noted in
patch management of its systems. However, others remain unresolved.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 While the use of e-passports and radio frequency communications
represents another potential attack vector to federal computer systems,
the risk posed by the transmission of malicious code on U.S. e-passports is
not significant. The U.S. e-passport chips have security features that
minimize the threat of tampering during the manufacturing and production
process. GPO and State have also taken steps to assure the security of the
embedded computer chips in U.S. e-passports. Because the
communications between e-passport computer chips and federal
computer systems have been designed to be limited, the opportunities for
transfer of malicious code are correspondingly limited. Combined, these
measures significantly reduce the risks from someone using e-passport
computer chips as a conveyance for malicious code to federal computer
systems.

Recommendations for
Executive Action

Agency Comments
and Our Evaluation

To ensure that border officers can more fully utilize the security features
of electronic passports, we recommend that the Secretary of Homeland
Security take the following two actions to provide greater assurance that
electronic passport data were written by the issuing nation and have not
been altered or forged:

•

Design and implement the systems functionality and databases needed to
fully verify electronic passport digital signatures at U.S. ports of entry.

•

In coordination with the Secretary of State, develop and implement an
approach to obtain the digital certificates necessary to validate the digital
signatures on U.S. and other nations’ electronic passports.

We provided draft copies of this report to the Secretaries of State and
Homeland Security and to the Public Printer at the Government Printing
Office for review and comment. We received formal written comments
from the Department of Homeland Security, which are reprinted in
appendix III. In its comments, DHS concurred with our recommendations.
However, DHS believes that the report incorrectly portrays CBP’s ability
to detect the fraudulent use of U.S. passports. DHS cites the ability of
CBP’s officers to access U.S. passport application data from State and use
it to detect impostors and altered data in U.S. passports. We agree that
providing State passport data to CBP officers during the inspection
process enhances their ability to detect the fraudulent use of U.S.
e-passports. Nevertheless, while State has expended significant resources
to produce an e-passport that includes contactless chip technology and
public key cryptography to help prevent counterfeiting and forgery, DHS

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 has not implemented the capabilities to fully utilize these security features
and is not fully realizing the security benefits of the inclusion of electronic
technology on e-passports.
We received informal comments from the State Department. State believes
that the draft report presents a comprehensive and balanced assessment
of the security of the e-passport design. We also received technical
comments from State, GPO, and DHS, which we incorporated in the
report, as appropriate.

As we agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 days
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the
Secretaries of State and Homeland Security and the Public Printer. In
addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at
http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me
at (202) 512-4499 or barkakatin@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page
of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are
listed in appendix IV.

Dr. Nabajyoti Barkakati
Chief Technologist
Director, Center for Technology and Engineering

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To determine whether e-passport chips can be altered or forged so that a
traveler could fraudulently enter the United States, we interviewed
officials from State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs and reviewed State
Department policies, procedures, and guidance documents regarding the
public key infrastructure (PKI) used to protect the data on the e-passport
computer chip and assessed them against relevant International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) and National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) standards and guidelines. We interviewed officials at
one passport issuance agency and reviewed systems documentation to
understand how U.S. e-passports are personalized. We determined the
extent to which U.S. e-passport computer chips are inspected at U.S. ports
of entry by interviewing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials
and reviewing documentation regarding the systems and procedures used
to inspect e-passports at the ports of entry. Within DHS, we met with
officials from the U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the
Screening Coordination Office, and the United States Visitor and
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program office.
To determine whether malicious code on the e-passport chips poses a risk
to national security, we determined how U.S. e-passport computer chips
are manufactured and incorporated into the production of blank U.S.
e-passport booklets based on interviews with the Government Printing
Office (GPO) and manufacturer officials and our reviews of GPO
documentation. We met with officials from NIST and the National
Counterterrorism Center to determine the level of threat that exists to U.S.
e-passports. We interviewed GPO and State officials and reviewed
documentation that describes the U.S. e-passport computer chip
architecture and operations. We reviewed documents governing the
manufacturing of the blank e-passport covers, including GPO contracts
with the manufacturers and the memorandum of understanding between
GPO and State. We determined that for malicious code on the e-passport
computer chip to be a risk to agency computers, it must first get on the
chip, then get transferred off the chip and onto agency computers, and
then subsequently get executed. Therefore, we identified and evaluated
protections that have been designed into the e-passport computer chip to
reduce the possibility of malicious code being introduced onto the chip,
controls in place to limit the transfer of malicious code off of the chip and
onto agency computers, and the security posture of the agency computer
systems interfacing with the e-passport chip. We also reviewed the results
of testing conducted on the e-passport computer chips by GPO, NIST, the
National Security Agency, and ICAO, and through the Common Criteria
program. We discussed and reviewed the results of security reviews
conducted by GPO. We met with GPO, State, and CBP officials to

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

understand how each agency interacts with the e-passport computer chips
and the potential risk that malicious code could pose to these agencies.
We conducted this performance audit from June 2008 to January 2010 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient,
appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence
obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions
based on our audit objectives.

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 Appendix II: Digital Signatures and Public
Key Cryptography

Appendix II: Digital Signatures and Public
Key Cryptography
Cryptography is the transformation of ordinary data (commonly referred
to as plaintext) into a code form (ciphertext) and back into plaintext using
a special value known as a key and a mathematical process called an
algorithm. Cryptography can be used on data to (1) hide their information
content, (2) prevent their undetected modification, and/or (3) prevent their
unauthorized use. A basic premise in cryptography is that good systems
depend only on the secrecy of the key used to perform the operations
rather than on any attempt to keep the algorithm secret. The algorithms
used to perform most cryptographic operations over the Internet are well
known; however, because the keys used by these algorithms are kept
secret, the process is considered secure.
The basis of PKI’s security assurances is a sophisticated cryptographic
technique known as public key cryptography, which employs algorithms
designed so that the key that is used to encrypt plaintext cannot be
calculated from the key that is used to decrypt the ciphertext.1 These two
keys complement each other in such a way that when one key is used for
encryption, only the other key can decrypt the ciphertext. One of these
keys is kept private and is known as the private key, while the other key is
widely published and is referred to as the public key. When used as shown
in figure 4, public key cryptography can help to assure data confidentiality
because only the private key can be used to decrypt the information
encrypted using the public key. When used as shown in figure 5, public key
cryptography can help provide authentication, nonrepudiation, and data
integrity because the public key will only work to decrypt the information
if it was encrypted using the private key. In both cases, ensuring the
security of the private key is vital to providing the necessary security
protections. If the private key is compromised, there can be little
assurance that data confidentiality, authentication, and data integrity can
be provided by the PKI.

1
A more comprehensive discussion of public key infrastructure technology can be found in
GAO, Information Security: Advances and Remaining Challenges to Adoption of Public
Key Infrastructure Technology, GAO-01-277 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 26, 2001), and NIST,
Introduction to Public Key Technology and the Federal PKI Infrastructure, SP 800-32
(Feb. 26, 2001).

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 Appendix II: Digital Signatures and Public
Key Cryptography

Figure 4: Using Public Key Cryptography to Provide Data Confidentiality

t
ex t
nt n
ai me t
l
P cu ex t
t
doain en
Pl cumext t
t
doain en
Pl cum
do

Plaintext

Public
key

Encryption

af
;d
kj em
d
s j0p af
af kj;d m
e
sdj0p af
af kj;d m
e
sdj0p
af

Ciphertext

Private
key

Decryption

t
ex t
nt n
ai me t
l
P cu ex t
t
doain en
Pl cumext t
t
doain en
Pl cum
do

Original
plaintext

Source: GAO analysis and Corel Galley (images).

Figure 5: Using Public Key Cryptography to Provide Data Integrity and
Authentication

xt
te t
in en
a
Pl cumext t
t
doain en
Pl cumext t
t
doain en
Pl cum
do

Plaintext

Private
key

Encryption

af
j;d m
k
e
sdj0p af
af kj;d m
e
sdj0p af
af kj;d m
e
sdj0p
af

Ciphertext

Public
key

Decryption

xt
te t
in en
a
Pl cumext t
t
doain en
Pl cumext t
t
doain en
Pl cum
do

Original
plaintext

Source: GAO analysis and Corel Galley (images).

Cryptographic techniques are used to generate and manage the key pairs
(a public key and private key), which are in turn used to create electronic
“certificates,” which link an individual or entity, such as State, to its public
key. These certificates are then used to verify digital signatures (providing
authentication and data integrity).

Creating and Using Digital
Signatures

Public key cryptography can be used to create a digital signature for a
message or transaction, thereby providing authentication, data integrity,
and nonrepudiation. For example, if Bob wishes to digitally sign an
electronic document, he can use his private key to encrypt it. His public
key is freely available, so anyone with access to his public key can decrypt

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 Appendix II: Digital Signatures and Public
Key Cryptography

the document. Although this seems backward because anyone can read
what is encrypted, the fact that Bob’s private key is held only by Bob
provides the basis for Bob’s digital signature. If Alice can successfully
decrypt the document using Bob’s public key, then she knows that the
message came from Bob because only he has access to the corresponding
private key. Of course, this assumes that (1) Bob has sole control over his
private signing key and (2) Alice is sure that the public key used to
validate Bob’s messages really belongs to Bob.
Digital signature systems use a two-step process, as shown in figure 6.
First, a hash algorithm is used to condense the data into a message digest.
Second, the message digest is encrypted using Bob’s private signing key to
create a digital signature. Because the message digest will be different for
each signature, each signature will also be unique, and using a good hash
algorithm, it is computationally infeasible to find another message that will
generate the same message digest.
Figure 6: Creating a Digital Signature

Bob
Final signed
document
contains the
original with the
encrypted hash
attached

Document to
be signed

Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Bob’s private
key
is applied
Hash algorithm applied

Message
digest

Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.

Encrypted

Encrypted

Message
digest

Message
digest

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Alice (or anyone wishing to verify the document) can compute the
message digest of the document and decrypt the signature using Bob’s
public key, as shown in figure 7. Assuming that the message digests match,
Alice then has three kinds of security assurance. First, that Bob actually

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 Appendix II: Digital Signatures and Public
Key Cryptography

signed the document (authentication). Second, the digital signature
ensures that Bob in fact sent the message (nonrepudiation). And third,
because the message digest would have changed if anything in the
message had been modified, Alice knows that no one tampered with the
contents of the document after Bob signed it (data integrity). Again, this
assumes that (1) Bob has sole control over his private signing key and
(2) Alice is sure that the public key used to validate Bob’s messages really
belongs to Bob.
Figure 7: Verifying a Digital Signature

Alice

Signed document

Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Plaintext document.
Encrypted
Message
digest

Hash algorithm
applied to plain text

Message
digest

Do they match?
Bob’s public
key used
to decrypt

Message
digest

Encrypted
Message
digest

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Digital Certificates and
Certification Authorities
Link Public Keys with
Specific Users to Convey
Trust

A digital certificate is an electronic credential that guarantees the
association between a public key and a specific entity. It is created by
placing the entity’s name, the entity’s public key, and certain other
identifying information in a small electronic document that is stored in a
directory or other database.
Directories may be publicly available repositories kept on servers that act
like telephone books for users to look up others’ public keys. The digital
certificate itself is created by a trusted third party called a certification
authority, which digitally signs the certificate, thus providing assurance
that the public key contained in the certificate does indeed belong to the
individual or organization named in the certificate. A certification

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 Appendix II: Digital Signatures and Public
Key Cryptography

authority is responsible for managing digital certificates. The purpose of
the certification authority is to oversee the generation, distribution,
renewal, revocation, and suspension of digital certificates. The
certification authority may set restrictions on a certificate, such as the
starting date for which the certificate is valid as well as its expiration date.
It is at times necessary to revoke digital certificates before their
established expiration dates, for example, when the private key is
compromised. Therefore, the certification authority is also responsible for
providing certificate status information and may publish a certificate
revocation list in a directory or maintain an online status-checking
mechanism. The PKI software in the user’s computer can verify that the
certificate is valid by first verifying that the certificate has not expired and
then by assuring that it has not been revoked or suspended.

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 Appendix III: Comments from the Department
of Homeland Security

Appendix III: Comments from the
Department of Homeland Security

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 Appendix III: Comments from the Department
of Homeland Security

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

 Appendix IV: Contact and Staff
Acknowledgments

Appendix IV: Contact and Staff
Acknowledgments
GAO Contact

Dr. Nabajyoti Barkakati, (202) 512-4499 or barkakatin@gao.gov

Staff
Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, William Carrigg, Richard Hung,
and John C. Martin made key contributions to this report.

(460601)

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GAO-10-96 Border Security

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