Analysis and Improvement of a Pseudorandom Number Generator for EPC Gen2 Tags J. Melià Seguí, J. Garcia Alfaro and J. Herrera Joancomartí |
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The EPC Gen2 is an
international standard that proposes the use of Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) in the supply chain. It is designed to balance
cost and functionality. The development of Gen2 tags faces, in fact,
several challenging constraints such as cost, compatibility
regulations, power consumption, and performance requirements. As a
consequence, security on board of Gen2 tags is often minimal. It is,
indeed, mainly based on the use of on board pseudorandomness. This
pseudorandomness is used to blind the communication between readers and
tags; and to acknowledge the proper execution of password-protected
operations. Gen2 manufacturers are often reluctant to show the design
of their pseudorandom generators. Security through obscurity has always
been ineffective. Some open designs have also been proposed. Most of
them fail, however, to prove their correctness. We analyze a recent
proposal presented in the literature and demonstrate that it is, in
fact, insecure.We propose an alternative mechanism that fits the Gen2
constraints and satisfies the security requirements.
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| Keywords:
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Electronic Product Code (EPC), PRNG, pseudorandom. |