Near Field Communication Applications Research Articles

NFC Data Security Using Hill Cipher

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology has become ubiquitous in various applications, from contactless payments to data transfer between devices. As the use of NFC expands, ensuring the security of transmitted data becomes paramount. This research investigates the application of Hill Cipher, a linear algebra-based encryption technique, to enhance the security of data transmitted via NFC. In the field of contemporary wireless technology, near-field communication (NFC) stands out as an important force, enabling contactless transactions and the seamless exchange of information between electronic devices. This research explores the innovative integration of NFC into the attendance input process, which is linked to a website-based attendance system. NFC's adaptability, which was initially prominent in payment cards, has expanded across industries, empowering smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices. This study contributes to the ongoing development of NFC technology, proposing a renewable solution for student attendance systems. With a vision of increased efficiency, this research anticipates increased utilization of time and resources, thereby providing a promising path for the advancement of attendance management. A comprehensive evaluation of the proposed NFC data security solution was conducted through simulations and practical implementations. The research assesses the impact on communication speed, energy consumption, and overall system performance. Results indicate that the integration of Hill Cipher introduces a negligible overhead on communication speed, making it a viable option for real-time NFC applications. Furthermore, the study addresses potential vulnerabilities and threats associated with NFC technology, emphasizing the role of Hill Cipher in mitigating risks such as eavesdropping and unauthorized data interception. The research considers practical implementation challenges and proposes strategies for seamless integration into existing NFC-enabled devices. In conclusion, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on NFC data security by introducing Hill Cipher as a robust encryption mechanism. The findings underscore the feasibility of implementing this encryption technique without compromising the efficiency of NFC communication. The proposed secure communication protocol holds promise for enhancing the privacy and integrity of data transmitted via NFC, fostering trust in the expanding ecosystem of NFC-enabled applications.

An NFC application for the process mapping automation for SMEs

In the past decade, the focus on Process Reengineering (PR) and innovation management has driven enterprises to explore how new technologies can reshape their business models and redefine their operational processes. Business Process Management, the visual display of physical process and IT flow, provide a structured approach to understanding, analyzing, and improving business processes, leading to increased efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction. While small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in manufacturing economies, their limited technical and financial resources often hinder substantial investments in research and development (R&D). This research aims to address this challenge by providing SMEs with an affordable and user-friendly solution for automating business process mapping, calculating total process times, and determining phase durations without the need for external expertise. Through the utilization of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, a comprehensive toolkit consisting of IoT devices with NFC tags has been developed. This toolkit can be seamlessly integrated into the local area network of the company. Rigorous testing in a laboratory environment has demonstrated the solution effectiveness and its seamless integration into the production environment of SMEs. By empowering SMEs with this cost-effective solution, they can gain valuable insights of their processes. Furthermore, by facilitating the easy and rapid development of their own business process mapping, SMEs have the potential to pave the way for effective and efficient reengineering. This research bridges the gap between limited resources and the growing demand for technological and organizational innovation, as well as cost savings in SMEs. It offers a practical and accessible approach to enhancing productivity and competitiveness in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Security problems and countermeasures against attacks in NFC

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is widely used due to its ease of use. However, NFC is vulnerable to security attacks such as man-in-the-middle; denial of service (DOS), etc. These attacks lead to the leakage of important user data, which can affect any organization that uses NFC applications and technologies. This article discusses NFC vulnerabilities and different types of NFC attacks. The article also discusses possible solutions that could protect NFC from these security threats.

Experimental approaches to NFC-enabled packaging for UX / CX of physical artefacts: A technology maturity study

Product's packaging with integrated electronic intelligence turns into a visual, tactile and digital encounter with consumers influencing their shopping experience and purchase behavior. The Near Field Communication (NFC) tag attached to the packaging can transform everyday objects into a direct communication channel. However, the NFC technology is still not widely accepted by the industry, thus it is necessary to analyze the influential factors related to consumer behavior, changing needs, and acceptance. As a result, this study carries out the user experiment, where a product's packaging with NFC capabilities is built and tested with selected participants to track user engagement with the smart interactive packaging. The main aim of this study is to examine the peculiarities of the user interaction with NFC-enabled packaging to find out consumer perception and technology acceptance of NFC to retrieve more comprehensive insights regarding barriers to the successful NFC application to a product's packaging. The participants were asked to interact with a set of three NFC-enabled cardboard packages with attached NFC stickers, and afterwards each participant evaluated their experience via survey designed based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). According to the results, all three proposed research hypotheses were tested and confirmed to some extent. This study provides a thorough elaboration regarding the technology- and consumer-related barriers that might prevent the successful acceptance of NFC technology applied to the packaging. This research contributes to a better understanding of how different variables have an impact on consumers’ perception and technology acceptance of NFC. All business management practitioners, marketers and designers could employ the results of this research as a way to improve the adoption process of the NFC technology in the packaging industry.

BigNFC: Novel Formal model for NFC based context-aware applications

Context-aware computing refers to system ability to sense its environment and modify its behavior for delivering suitable services. Having such kind of systems with the Near Field Communication (NFC) capability, opens new perspectives and research areas, allowing very useful type of applications known as NFC-based context-aware applications. These systems require correctness due to their applicability and then need to be proven formally using exhaustive analysis approach such as formal verification. In literature, most of works focuses on creating a general model for context aware systems ignoring the specificity of certain applications such as NFC applications where they present a higher complexity. We emphasize the existence of little or no work in this area supporting formal modeling. To boost it, we propose BigNFC as a novel formal-model based on Bigraphical Reactive Systems (BRS) taking account the interaction mode from the beginning, so we establish mapping between BRS and BigNFC components, where the structures are modelled as bigraphs and behaviors as rewriting rules. Finally, to validate our model, we have applied it on a real-life application and some properties were checked successfully.

GNFCVulFinder: NDEF Vulnerability Discovering for NFC-Enabled Smart Mobile Devices Based on Fuzzing

Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enable two electronic devices. Its security and reliability are welcomed by mobile terminal manufactures, banks, telecom operators, and third-party payment platforms. Simultaneously, it has also drawn more and more attention from hackers and attackers, and NFC-enabled devices are facing increasing threats. To improve the security of the NFC technology, the paper studied the technology of discovering security vulnerabilities of NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF), the most important data transmission protocol. In the paper, we proposed an algorithm, GTCT (General Test Case Construction and Test), based on fuzzing to construct test cases and test the NDEF protocol. GTCT adopts four strategies to construct test cases, manual, generation, mutation, and “reverse analysis,” which can detect logic vulnerabilities that fuzzing cannot find and improve the detection rate. Based on GTCT, we designed an NDEF vulnerability discovering framework and developed a tool named “GNFCVulFinder” (General NFC Vulnerability Finder). By testing 33 NFC system services and applications on Android and Windows Phones, we found eight vulnerabilities, including DoS vulnerabilities of NFC service, logic vulnerabilities about opening Bluetooth/Wi-Fi/torch, design flaws about the black screen, and DoS of NFC applications. Finally, we give some security suggestions for the developer to enhance the security of NFC.

A framework to lower the risk of medication prescribing and dispensing errors: A usability study of an NFC-based mobile application

BackgroundWrong medication and wrong dosage are major risks in the pharmaceutical industry, as many medication errors occur when dispensing medication. The dispensing process in its current form is limited in verifying the patient's identity before dispensing the medication. Furthermore, this process does not offer a robust method for providing accurate medication intake instructions. Therefore, we have developed a framework to accurately and securely overcome issues associated with transferring patient credentials and prescription information. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a framework to mitigate medication dispensing errors. One of the framework components is the mobile application that uses near-field communication (NFC) to transfer information. Therefore, in this paper, we designed a user study to assess the proposed NFC-based mobile application in terms of usefulness and ease of use compared with the traditional method of picking up a prescribed medication. MethodsWe conducted a usability study with 21 participants to perform four tasks to simulate the process of picking up a prescribed medication using the proposed NFC application method and the traditional method of picking up medication. Then, we asked the participants to complete two post-questionnaires after using each method to evaluate the participants’ experience of the process. Next, we asked the participants to complete an additional questionnaire about the usefulness of the NFC application method. Finally, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants to get more evidence to back up the questionnaire answers. ResultsOur findings show that 91% of the participants believe using the NFC application method will improve patient safety during the medication pickup process. Nearly 97% of participants found the NFC application method easy to use. Our findings show that the participants scored lower when using the NFC application method compared with the traditional method when trying to identify the wrong medication after dispensing. In addition, 90% of the participants successfully identified the wrong medication when using the NFC application method, compared to only 38% when using the traditional method. Finally, the results show that the participants preferred using the NFC application method in terms of information availability, security, and privacy. ConclusionsThe study findings show that the proposed NFC application for managing patients’ prescriptions and picking up medication might improve patient safety. The results show that the participants believe the NFC application will mitigate medication dispensing errors, at least from their end. The participants believe the application will provide a fast and accurate method of verifying dispensed medication from the patient end. Moreover, the application will help the patient to track their current prescription, which also helps them remember the medication intake instructions. Finally, the study indicates that the application will provide a secure, private, and accurate method to help verify the patient's identity, thus minimizing medication errors during the medication dispensing process.

Security Threats to Business Information Systems Using NFC Read/Write Mode

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) and related technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC) are becoming essential in industrial contexts thanks to their ability to perform contactless data exchange, either device-to-device or tag-to-device. One of the three main operation modes of NFC, called read/write mode, makes use of the latter type of interaction. It is extensively used in business information systems that make use of NFC tags to provide the end-user with augmented information in one of several available NFC data exchange formats, such as plain text, simple URLs or enriched URLs. Using a wide variety of physical form factors, NFC-compatible tags (wireless transponders) are currently available in many locations with applications going from smart posters, contactless tokens, tap-and-go payments or transport ticketing to automated device configuration, patient identification at hospitals or inventory management within supply chains. Most of these applications handle sensitive processes or data. This paper proposes a complete security threat model for the read/write operation mode of NFC used in Next Generation Industrial IoT (Nx-IIoT) contexts. This model, based on a well-known methodology, STRIDE, allows developers and users to identify NFC applications vulnerabilities or weaknesses, analyze potential threats, propose risk management strategies, and design mitigation mechanisms to mention only some significant examples.

A Novel Automated Interoperability Test and Debug System for Near-Field Communication

In this article, we present a new system architecture of an automated interoperability test and debug system for Near-Field Communication (NFC). The increasing availability of NFC-enabled devices and the resulting amount of NFC applications require new methods for interoperability testing and debugging in order to reduce costs. We combine already existing interoperability test systems and the know-how of manual debugging methods to develop a new automated interoperability test and debug system architecture. We analyze the main components of state-of-the-art test systems, define new requirements for the new system architecture, and evaluated the feasibility with two different designs. Our new system architecture significantly reduces the time and cost of developing and certifying new NFC-enabled devices.

An anonymous and secure key agreement protocol for NFC applications using pseudonym

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a promising technology that facilitate E-commerce through contactless communications. In the past decade, the NFC characteristics such as availability and usage simplicity have attracted the attention of most smartphones’ manufacturers and industries. Nevertheless, lack of a common and a comprehensive approach to employ NFC as a contactless payment tool, results in the persistence of some unresolved problems. These problems have hampered the widespread use of this technology since its appearance. During past years, most researchers have focused on addressing security threats existing in NFC environment. In this regard, these researches led to the introduction of an NFC security standard (NFC-SEC), which has been published by ISO and ECMA organizations. However, this standard does not offer privacy for users and there are few practical works providing it through NFC communications. Recently, some privacy preserving protocols have been proposed to supply NFC security along with anonymity. In this paper, we first prove that these previous protocols suffer from security vulnerabilities. Second, we propose our anonymous and secure key agreement (ASKA) protocol for NFC application using pseudonyms in order to address most probable security threats and those persisting in previous schemes. Third, we provide informal and formal security analysis using the Real-Or-Random model. The safety of the ASKA protocol is also verified by conducted simulation on the widely accepted AVISPA tool. Finally, the computational and communicational cost comparison along with the implementation result confirm that the proposed protocol is more suitable for NFC applications than previous schemes.

A User-centered Design Approach to Near Field Communication-based Applications for Children

There is an abundance of technology targeting children in terms of education, entertainment, and health; however, little research has been conducted on the usability of Near Field Communication (NFC) to create an interactive, digital environment for children easily accessible on a mobile device. NFC technology is a component of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and is affordable, intuitive, and accessible. The following research evaluates existing NFC applications for children in terms of their ease of use, appropriateness, and areas in need of improvement. Recommendations are provided in visual design, audio enhancements, reward system, and privacy and security concerns. It is concluded that adopting NFC technology in all facets of life will positively benefit the most vulnerable population, children, but first progress toward a user-centered design for this group is required.

Efficient NFC coil antennas for fully enclosed metallic‐framed wearable devices

This study reports methods of alleviating the effect on inductive near-field communication (NFC) coils caused by fully enclosed metallic-frames for wearable devices such as smartwatches. Two techniques that, respectively, involve creating two short-circuit passages to modify the distribution of the out-of-phase current on the metallic-frame and reducing the out-of-phase current amplitude by devising an asymmetric coil topology is presented and studied in detail. Extensive simulation, prototyping and measurement are carried out for 13.56 MHz NFC applications. The presented techniques can, respectively, improve the induced magnetic coupling by 43 and 30% under identical conditions in the presence of the metallic frame. Furthermore, both methods comply with the NFC forum certification and do not require the need to increase the drive current and power consumption of the NFC circuitry.

Evaluating Near‐Field Communication tag security for identity theft prevention

Near‐Field Communication (NFC) applications are growing at a rapid pace due to their user‐friendly nature and cost effectiveness. The growth of NFC applications has caught the attention of attackers who can target NFC entities (eg, tags and readers) to gain access to any stored information. NFC is a nascent technology that offers ease of use and secure communication. However, this technology can act as a doorway for major hacks, such as skimming and other identity theft problems. This article presents a technique that can still read the erased data from an NFC tag even if the tag has been erased employing conventional techniques. Furthermore, a set of recommendations is provided for the proper erasure of NFC tags to avoid leaving any traces of the erased data.

NFC communication protocol

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range communication technology. Because of its popularity, NFC is widely applied in the field of Internet of Things (IoT). NFC technology reduces the use of many other devices, so that only smartphones, which have NFC embedded in them, are then widely used for various purposes. Smartphones are becoming quite popular equipment today, because smartphone users are increasing from time to time. With this development, NFC is embeded in smartphones widely used and quite popular. Implementation of NFC has been done in various fields, such as health, business, transportation and others. NFC applications in the Service Domain include healthcare, location, finance, social networking, entertainment, education etc. In the field of healthcare applications, NFC can facilitate communication between patients and paramedics, such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other sections. In other fields there are social networking applications, entertainment applications, education applications, NFC miscellaneous applications. In terms of the development of the tag itself, NFC can be discussed with 2 kinds of approach. Firstly is from the side of tag, and secondly is in terms of communication technology. There are 4 types of NFC tags, type 1, type 2, type 3 and type 4. Each type has its own specifications. Frames, data and payload formats have their own different specifications. In its technological side there are 3 types of NFC A, B and F. Each type has its different way in signals and the data format sent. NFC type A is used in this testing Such rapid development, however, gives positive and negative impacts. One of the effects is that with the use of NFC cards that there will be more possibilities for multiple cards to be read simultaneously. For this reason, a reader is required to read more than one card. Trials show that some cards can be read by a reader sequentially and can write or read.

Application of graphene-based flexible antennas in consumer electronic devices

Abstract We describe the fabrication and characterization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) devices based on highly flexible, carbon-based antennas composed of stacked graphene multilayers. This material features a high value of conductivity (4.20 * 10 5 S/m) comparable to monocrystalline graphite, but is much more flexible and processable. We first studied the replacement of metal with carbon antennas using computer modeling, to select the best design. Then we manufactured several devices to be used according to the communication protocol ISO/IEC 15693. The inductance of the G-paper antennas was tested before and after hundreds of thousands of bending cycles at bending radii of 45 and 90 mm. During bending the self-resonance frequency and inductance peak showed minimal variation and the resistance at 1 MHz changed from 33.09 Ω to 34.18 Ω, outperforming standard, commercial metallic antennas. The devices were successfully tested by exchanging data with a smartphone and other commercial NFC readers, matching the performance of standard, commercial metallic antennas. The graphene antennas could be deposited on different standard polymeric substrates or on textiles. Smart cards, flexible NFC tags and wearable NFC bracelets were prepared in this way to be used in electronic keys, business cards and other typical NFC applications.

PSAP: Pseudonym-Based Secure Authentication Protocol for NFC Applications

Nowadays, near field communication (NFC) has been widely used in electronic payment, ticketing, and many other areas. NFC security standard requires the use of public key infrastructure (PKI) to implement mutual authentication and session keys negotiation in order to ensure communication security. In traditional PKI-based schemes, every user uses a fixed public/private key pair to implement authentication and key agreement. An attacker can create a profile based on user’s public key to track and compromise the user’s privacy. Recently, He et al. and Odelu et al. successively proposed pseudonym-based authentication key and agreement protocols for NFC after Eun et al. ’s protocol (2013), which is first claimed to provide conditional privacy for NFC. They respectively claimed that their scheme can satisfy the security requirements. In this paper, first, we prove that their protocols still have security flaws, including the confusion of the user’s identity and the random identity. Then, we propose a pseudonym-based secure authentication protocol (PSAP) for NFC applications, which is effective in lifetime and includes time synchronization-based method and nonce-based method. In our scheme, trusted service manager issues pseudonyms but does not need to maintain verification tables and it could reveal the user’s identity of internal attackers. Furthermore, security and performance analysis proves that PSAP can provide traceability and more secure features with a little more cost.

Novel NFC Applications to Enrich Our Connections: The NFC Forum Innovation Awards

One of the greatest judging experiences I have had the good fortune of being a part of was for the Near-Field Communication (NFC) Forum Innovation Award in its inaugural year [1]. (I was representing the IEEE Council on Radio-Frequency Identification.) The NFC Forum's (www.nfc-forum.org) mission is to advance the use of NFC technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology.

Technological Diffusion of Near Field Communication (NFC)

Near Field Communication (NFC) is increasingly being employed in modern consumer devices and until now it has been used for mobile payments. However, on further investigation there are other areas where NFC has a key role. Recent developments in Medical and ticketing based NFC applications show promise for being the so called “Catalyst” for NFC's integration. The objective of this research was to determine if mobile payments will be the catalyst for a more widespread integration of NFC into society and how NFC technology will impact on everyday life. Research Methods comprised questionnaire and interviews to gain further insight into the current standing of NFC. The findings indicated that NFC will not mature enough to be classified as viral by 2016, especially with contactless payments as no decisions seem to have been made for any progression. It is that most likely outcome that NFC will mature enough at the very latest in 2018, with further development in the years to come for unique serialisation and the internet of things. Managerial implications for this research extend to the medical sector where large gains can be made in better patient care and remote diagnostics leading to a more efficient service.

Formal security analysis of near field communication using model checking

Near field communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless communication technology envisioned to support a large gamut of smart-device applications, such as payment and ticketing. Although two NFC devices need to be in close proximity to communicate (up to 10 cm), adversaries can use a fast and transparent communication channel to relay data and, thus, force an NFC link between two distant victims. Since relay attacks can bypass the NFC requirement for short-range communication cheaply and easily, it is important to evaluate the security of NFC applications. In this work, we present a general framework that exploits formal analysis and especially model checking as a means of verifying the resiliency of NFC protocol against relay attacks. Toward this goal, we built a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) model using the PRISM model checker. Firstly, we took into account NFC protocol parameters and, then, we enhanced our model with networking parameters, which include both mobile environment and security-aware characteristics. Combining NFC specifications with an adversary's characteristics, we produced the relay attack model, which is used for extracting our security analysis results. Through these results, we can explain how a relay attack could be prevented and discuss potential countermeasures.

SEAP: Secure and efficient authentication protocol for NFC applications using pseudonyms

Authentication protocol plays an important role in the short-range wireless communications for the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. Due to the shared nature of wireless communication networks, there are several kinds of security vulnerabilities. Recently, a pseudonym-based NFC protocol (PBNFCP) has been proposed to withstand the security pitfalls found in the existing conditional privacy preserving security protocol (CPPNFC). However, this paper further analyzes PBNFCP and shows that it still fails to prevent the claimed security properties, such as impersonation attacks against an adversary, who is a malicious registered user having a valid pseudonym and corresponding private key. In order to overcome these security drawbacks, this paper proposes a secure and efficient authentication protocol (SEAP) for NFC applications using lifetime-based pseudonyms. The proposed SEAP is simulated for the formal security verification using the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool. The simulation results show that SEAP is secure. The rigorous security and performance analysis shows that the proposed SEAP is secure and efficient as compared to the related existing authentication protocols for NFC applications.