Authentication Issues in Near Field Communication and RFID
Authentication Issues in Near Field Communication and RFID Submitted by Muhammad Qasim Saeed for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Royal Holloway, University of London 2014 Declaration I, Muhammad Qasim Saeed, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed . (Muhammad Qasim Saeed) Date: 1 To Eve, who enjoys the most powerful status in information security. 2 Abstract Near Field Communication is a short-range wireless technology based on RFID stan- dard ISO 18092, ISO 14443 and ISO 15693. This means, it provides compatibility with the millions of contactless smartcards and RFID scanners that already exist worldwide. NFC is now available on the phones and this integration has resulted in a sharp rise in its utility. An NFC-enabled cell phone acts as an RFID reader to read compatible RFID tags (NFC tags), such as smart posters. The same cell phone can also be used as an NFC tag storing relevant data. In this case, a cell phone transforms into a digital wallet storing bank cards (money), vouchers, loyalties card etc., at a secure place called `Secure Element'. Abuse of NFC technology is also on sharp rise because of large num- ber of users and inadequate security standards. This thesis looks at security issues of NFC and RFID and provides mechanisms to improve the security features. NFC Fo- rum (an association for developing NFC standards) released the signature specification in 2010 describing rules to digitally sign the NFC tag's contents.
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