Handbook of Information Security: Threats, Vulnerabilities, Prevention, Detection, and Management, Volume 3

RFID and Security

Stephen A. Weis, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Introduction

History of Radio Frequency Identification

Early RFID

Uniform Product Codes

Modern RFID

Related Work

Radio Frequency Identification System Primer

System Components

RFID Taxonomy

Example EPC Tag Specification

Adversarial Model and Attacks

Adversarial Model

Attacks

Security Countermeasures

Cryptographic

Physical

Detection, Response, and Diversification

Conclusion

Glossary

Cross References

References

INTRODUCTION

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has the potential to greatly impact inventory control, supply chain management, and retail sales applications by lowering costs and raising efficiency. Although some form of RFID systems has been used for decades, modern innovation and open technology standards are lowering costs to the point where it will be economical to use RFID for everyday consumer applications. By enabling digital naming of common items, RFID may facilitate an “Internet of things” by associating arbitrary data with physical objects. However, widespread adoption of RFID systems may both positively and negatively affect the security of an RFID-enabled infrastructure.

The most basic building blocks of RFID systems are small devices that broadcast identifying via radio frequency (RF) signals. These devices are called RFID transponders or tags. RFID tags are part of a greater system of RFID reading devices (or simply readers) and databases that facilitate ...