Extensive Fault Emulation on RFID Tags

Abstract

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is widespread and still necessary in many important applications. However, and in various significant cases, the use of this technology faces multiple security issues that must be addressed. This is mainly related to the use of RFID tags (transponders) which are electronic components communicating wirelessly, and hence they are vulnerable to multiple attacks through several means. In this work, an extensive fault analysis is performed on a tag architecture in order to evaluate its hardness. Tens of millions of single-bit upset (SBU) and multiple-bit upset (MBU) faults are emulated randomly on this tag architecture using an FPGA-based emulation platform. The emulated faults are classified under five groups according to faults effect on the tag behaviour. The obtained results show the faults effect variation in function of the number of MBU affected bits. The interpretation of this variation allows evaluating the tag robustness. The proposed approach represents an efficient mean that permits to study tag architectures at the design level and evaluating their robustness and vulnerability to fault attacks.