Two Security Problems of RFID Security Method with Ownership Transfer
Eun-Jun Yoon
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Kyungpook National University
Daegu 702-701, Republic of Korea
ejyoon@tpic.ac.kr
Kee-Young Yoo
∗
Department of Computer Engineering
Kyungpook National University
Daegu 702-701, Republic of Korea
yook@knu.ac.kr
Abstract
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology
that allows automatic identification and data capture by us-
ing radio frequencies. In 2006, Osaka et al. proposed a
RFID security method based on a hash function and a sym-
metric key cryptosystem. Osaka et al. claimed that their
proposed RFID security method achieves the following se-
curity requirements such as (1) Indistinguishability, (2) For-
ward Security, (3) Replay Attack, (4) Tag Killing, and (5)
Ownership Transfer. Unlike their claims, the current pa-
per points out two security problems of Osaka et al.’s RFID
security method. To mitigate these security breaches, we
propose an improved RFID security method.
Keyword: RFID, Authentication, Cryptanalysis, For-
ward secrecy, DoS attack
1 Introduction
The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology
[1, 2, 3, 4] has come under the spotlight as technology sup-
porting ubiquitous society. For example, RFID has been
widely used by manufacturing management, custody con-
trol, management of humans and farm animals, arrange-
ment of books at some libraries, etc. From now, intended
purpose of RFID will be diversified, and will be used in ev-
ery nook and cranny. However, the current RFID systems
have several security problems and challenges [3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
In general, RFID security system consists of the three
components as Database, Reader, and Tag. Database holds
the unique identities IDs of each Tag and administrates
the information Info(ID) related to the ID (e.g. time
and location, manufacturer name, ownership, etc.). During
the protocol, the IDs are secretly held by only Database.
Database is securely connected only to Reader, tries to
∗
Corresponding author: Kee-Young Yoo (yook@knu.ac.kr) Tel.: +82-
53-950-5553; Fax: +82-53-957-4846
find the ID from Reader, and then gives Info(ID) to
Reader. Reader reads and writes the data on Tag via inse-
cure radio-frequency transmission channel. Reader broad-
casts response request Query and the random number r,
which is necessary to transmit data securely, to Tag. Reader
also requests Info(ID) to Database. Tag holds crypto-
graphically converted ID. Tag computes and transmits the
request information to Reader. Tags are memory-constraint
and low-energy devices, so that data transmission between
Tag and Reader is not encrypted, and Tags do not provide
tamper resistant.
Therefor, it must be to deal with new security problems
and challenges in RFID system, which have not been con-
sidered in the conventional security systems. The s ecurity
problems in RFID system are as follows:
• Data transmission between Tag and Reader is unen-
crypted.
• Because Tags are inexpensive micromini devices, Tags
do not provide tamper resistant.
Recently, there are many papers reported that current
RFID systems must achieve the following security require-
ments [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]:
• Indistinguishability: The security that the attacker can
not distinguish output of Tag.
• Forward Security: The security that past data are se-
cure even if present data on Tag leaked out to the at-
tacker.
• Replay Attack: The security against the attack that the
attacker spoofs as legitimate Tag .
• Tag Killing: The security against the DoS attack that
broadcasts large amount of Query to Tag, then stops
its working.
• Ownership Transfer: Ownership is transferable with-
out invasion of owner’s privacy.
2008 IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing
978-0-7695-3354-4/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/NPC.2008.64
68
2008 IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing
978-0-7695-3354-4/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/NPC.2008.64
68
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