Qinghan Xiao, Cam Boulet and Thomas GibbonsSecond International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, 2007

Speaker : 黃韋綸

RFID Security Issues in Military Supply Chains

Outline

IntroductionRFID System

System componentsTag categories

Attacks and CountermeasuresConclusion

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Introduction

Radio frequency identification.

The difference of civilian supply chain and military supply chain.

Reveal possible attacks to RFID systems.

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RFID System -System components

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RFID System -Tag categories

Passive, semi-passive and active.

Passive Active

Power sourceelectromagnetic

inductionOr microwave

Battery

Read range Below 3 meters 5~100 meters

Volume Small Big

Use length 10 years 2~7 years

Price Cheap Expansive5

Attacks and Countermeasures –

Eavesdropping

Simple but efficient means.

Countermeasures:

Establishing a secure channel.

Encrypting the communication between the tag and reader.

Write the tag with sufficient information to identify the shipment to another automated database.

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Attacks and Countermeasures –

Man-in-the-middle (MIM) attack

Change the information en route.

Countermeasures:

Encrypt the communication.

Send the information through a secure channel.

Provide an authentication protocol.7

Attacks and Countermeasures –

Denial of service (DoS)

The purpose is disable the RFID system cannot be used.

Physical layer attacks, such as jamming and interference.

Attacker cannot get very close to the target or use an extremely strong transmitter within an effective distance.

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Attacks and Countermeasures –

Spoofing

Tag cloning.

Countermeasures:

Authentication protocol and data encryption.

Increase the cost and technology complexity.

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Attacks and Countermeasures –

Replay Intercepts communication between a reader and a

tag to capture a valid RFID signal.

The recorded signal will re-entered into the system when the attacker receives a query from the reader.

Since the data appears valid, it will be accepted by the system.

Countermeasures:

Use a challenge and response mechanism.

Time-based or counter-based scheme.

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Attacks and Countermeasures –

Virus

Tags could be used as a medium to transmit a computer virus.

Particular RFID virus could use SQL injection to attack the backend servers and eventually bring an entire RFID system down.

Countermeasures:

Well-developed middleware.

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Attacks and Countermeasures –

Power analysisSide-channel attack.

The power consumption patterns are different when the tag received correct and incorrect password bits.

Countermeasures:

Either masking the spikes in power consumption or improving the hash algorithm will protect the tags being attacked by power analysis.

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Attacks and Countermeasures –

Tracking

Different from any of the previously discussed RFID attacks, tracking is a threat directed to an individual.

Manufacturers may put item-level RFID tags into many household products.

RFID systems will be used to track people’s movements and even create a precise profile of their purchases.

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Conclusion

Although most of the attacking methods discussed in this paper have existed for several years, there is a chance that they are being applied to attacking RFID technology with the increasing use of RFID.

Conduct of risk assessments, definition of security policy and development of more sophisticated approaches to defeat the attacks.

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