Secure and privacy-preserving protocols for RFID applications

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a means to efficiently and quickly, auto-identify objects, assets, pets, people, etc. RFID technology is poised to automate the supply chain management system for businesses. Very soon it would become economical to attach RFID tags to items and consumer goods. As a result we can anticipate many electronic appliances including mobile/smart phones to have a RFID-reader-tag component/chip embedded in them. Such developments would allow RFID technology to also assist people in their daily lives. In this thesis we focus on three specific RFID applications that are beneficial to businesses and consumers. At the outset this thesis focuses on RFID-based supply chain management system that adheres to the standard EPCglobal Architecture Framework specification. We approach this framework with a security point-of-view. We analyzed the various security threats that affect each of the framework’s entities and their communication interfaces. We arrive at some possible security requirements and needed security solutions to ward off these threats. After our thorough security assessment of the RFID-based supply chain management system, we narrowed down our research focus on RFID: Tag-Reader-Server security. We realized that cloned fake RFID tags, malicious RFID readers and consumer privacy violation pose a major threat to RFID-based supply chain management system. Since these low-cost passive tags have constrained resources, in this thesis we propose two innovative light-weight cryptographic protocols which use only light-weight primitives such as 16 bit: random number generator, cyclic redundancy check and exclusive-OR (XOR) functions and provide RFID tag-reader-Server mutual authentication, communicating-data confidentiality and integrity, secure key-distribution and key-protection, and tag anonymity. The promising and beneficial RFID technology would eventually lead to the development and deployment of electronic appliances and devi...