Reverse Engineering and Security Evaluation of Commercial Tags for RFID-Based IoT Applications

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• The Internet of Things (IoT) relies on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for object identification and data exchange.
• Despite RFID's widespread use in applications like access control and logistics, security vulnerabilities persist.
• Existing RFID security measures are often inadequate, leaving systems susceptible to various attacks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive review of common security flaws and recent attacks in RFID-based IoT systems.
• To introduce a novel methodology for detecting and mitigating these RFID security vulnerabilities.
• To validate the proposed methodology using practical tools and real-world scenarios.

Main Methods:

• A detailed literature review of RFID security flaws and attacks in IoT.
• Development of a new methodology for identifying and addressing RFID vulnerabilities.
• Practical application and validation of the methodology using the Proxmark 3 tool on common RFID identification systems.

Main Results:

• The study identified and reviewed numerous common and advanced security flaws in RFID-based IoT systems.
• The proposed methodology effectively detected and facilitated the mitigation of identified RFID vulnerabilities.
• Validation demonstrated the ability to clone transponders, extract data, and emulate tags and readers, confirming the methodology's utility.

Conclusions:

• The presented methodology is effective for auditing the security of RFID communications in IoT applications.
• The approach aids in reverse engineering RFID protocols and understanding potential attack vectors.
• The methodology is adaptable and applicable to various RFID communication protocols beyond IoT.