Abstract
Near Field Communications (NFC) is a rising tech-nology that enables two devices that are within close proximity to quickly establish wireless contactless communications. It looks intuitively secure enough and various applications like ticketing, mobile payments, access grant etc. are taking advantage of NFC and flooding into the market in recent years. However, is it worth to trust such applications at the risk of leaking the user’s private information? This paper surveys NFC vulnerabilities and exploits different kinds of security attacks. Upon surveying related materials, the paper covered possible solutions that could defend against those security threats. Furthermore, attacks and countermeasures evaluation in terms of practicality and cost have been further investigated.
Highlights
NFC (Near Field Communications) provides bidirectional, wireless, contactless communications for two NFC enabled devices or NFC tags within a short transmission range of less than 10 cm. It is derived from the Radio Frequency Identification technology, or RFID, whereas RFID is only capable of one-way transmission
NFC is based on inductive coupling to connect two NFC devices, or tags to establish communication at a central frequency of 13.56MHz, which is supported by ISO14443 standards
Based on activeness of the involved NFC devices or tags, the communication modes could be classified as active-active, active-inactive, inactive-active communication modes
Summary
NFC (Near Field Communications) provides bidirectional, wireless, contactless communications for two NFC enabled devices or NFC tags within a short transmission range of less than 10 cm. For one thing that NFC is a measure of wireless communication, which makes it vulnerable to eavesdropping, data corruption, and jamming attack. NFC technology itself doesn’t include strong security scheme to protect those applications that are built upon it. This leaves the job to the software designers and developers to seek ways to avoid any threats that could be caused by malfunction. Though a NFC communication happens within close proximity, it doesn’t mean that NFC is resistant to eavesdropping, jamming, data corruption, and other attacks towards wireless connection.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
