HID has sent a letter to IOActive, a security consulting firm, accusing Chris Paget, IOActive's director of research and development, of possible patent infringement over a planned presentation, "RFID for beginners," on Wednesday, a move that could lead to legal action should the talk go forward, according to Jeff Moss, founder and director of Black Hat.

IOActive will hold a press conference Tuesday at 9:00AM to discuss the issue, according to Joshua Pennell, IOActive's CEO told InfoWorld.

Paget's talk will address widespread security issues with the implementation of RFID in proximity cards that are sold by HID and other companies and that are widely used for building access. His RFID cloner was on in San Francisco, where how the device could be used to steal access codes from HID brand proximity cards, store them, then use the stolen codes to fool a HID card reader.

at Black Hat Federal will go deeper, providing schematics and source code that attendees could use to create their own cloning device, and discussing vulnerable implementations of RFID technology in a wide variety of devices, Paget told InfoWorld at RSA earlier this month.

"Hopefully I'll be able to give people some information about RFID and get some pressure on vendors to fix these lousy RFID implementations," Paget said. "As it stands, I can walk up to someone on the street or maybe stand next to them in an elevator, grab their card ID and get into the building," he said.