NFC Payment Security with Cloud Based Authentication System

Abstract

Near Field Communication is a new medium of wireless communication. NFC technology is now widely introducing in smartphones. NFC technology in smartphone has made them capable of contact-less payment on POS terminals. The security protocol used for contact and contact-less payments is named as EMV (Europay Master Visa). EMV sets the security standards for online transactions in contact and contact-less payments. When deeply analyzed, EMV protocol has security vulnerabilities in (1) Mutual Authentication and (2) Exchange of banking information between payment device and payment terminal. As NFC payment involves exchange of sensitive data in open environment within a range of 10 cm, risks are involved for data being theft. We introduced cloud hosted security protocol to overcome vulnerabilities in EMV standards. The authenticity of this protocol is analyzed using Scyther tool. The protocol uses an authentication server hosted on cloud and asymmetric encryption in mutual authentication and exchange of banking data between payment device and payment terminal.