RFID authentication protocol based on a novel EPC Gen2 PRNG

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lightweight, secure RFID authentication protocol based on a novel EPC Gen2-compatible PRNG, enhancing security and efficiency for resource-constrained RFID devices.

Contribution

It presents a new nonlinear filter-based PRNG and a mutual authentication protocol tailored for low-resource RFID tags, fulfilling practical security and efficiency requirements.

Findings

The proposed PRNG is suitable for passive RFID tags with limited resources.

The authentication protocol provides secure mutual authentication, confidentiality, and anonymity.

The schemes are lightweight, requiring only simple computations like LFSR and bitwise operations.

Abstract

Continuous advances of Information Technologies (ITs), and in particular of the RFID technologies that allow the connection between the physical world objects and the IT infrastructure, have guaranteed the improvement and efficiency of industrial technologies in the last decades. This paper includes the proposal of two new schemes for RFID. On the one hand, it describes the internals of a lightweight Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) suitable for low resource devices such as passive RFID complying with the EPC Gen2 specifications. On the other hand, a new secure mutual authentication protocol for such RFID devices that uses the proposed PRNG is presented. The design of the proposed PRNG is based on a nonlinear filter of a Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR), and the authentication protocol is lightweight. Both schemes fulfill all practical requirements of low-cost RFID such as resource limitation of EPC Gen2 tags. This is thanks to that only simple computation modules such as the proposed LFSR-based pseudorandom generator and bitwise operations are required. The combination of both proposals guarantees at the same time low power consumption and secure features such as authentication, confidentiality and anonymity.