Arbitrator2.0: Preventing Unauthorized Access on Passive Tags

Abstract

As the ultra high frequency (UHF) passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology becomes increasingly deployed, it faces an array of new security attacks. In this paper, we consider a type of attack in which a malicious RFID reader could arbitrarily access the tags, e.g., retrieve or modify IDs or other data in the memory, via standard commands. To deal with this type of attack, we propose a physical-layer tag protection framework, namely Arbitrator2.0, that involves two operating mode, i.e., one is to passively listen on RF channels and identify unauthorized readers, the other is working as normal reader to access tag information but resilient to one-antenna eavesdropper. Our solution does not need to modify RFID tags or the underlying communication standards. In this study, we have implemented a prototype Arbitrator2.0 over the universal software radio peripheral (USRP) platform, and conducted extensive experiments to evaluate its performance. The results show that Arbitrator2.0 can effectively diminish the unauthorized access attacks and prevent eavesdropping.