Chameleon Ultra: Guide to RFID Reading, Emulation and Testing
Brief
Contactless cards and key fobs are now part of everyday life. They unlock apartment buildings, identify employees, open hotel rooms, record attendance and interact with electronic locks. Although many of these credentials look similar from the outside, the technology inside them can be very different.
The Chameleon Ultra is a compact, open-source RFID and NFC research device. It can identify and read supported contactless tokens, save their information, emulate selected cards and, in some cases, write compatible information to a suitable blank card or key fob. It supports both common 125 kHz low-frequency RFID technologies and selected 13. 56 MHz high-frequency NFC/RFID technologies.
In simple terms, it is a portable tool for learning how contactless credentials work and for testing systems that you own or are explicitly authorized to assess.