Optimization of RFID Attack Detection using a Received Signal Strength Indication Comparison Method

• Published in: Procedia computer science Vol. 246; pp. 4142 - 4151
• Main Authors: Lemieszewski, Łukasz, Baraniecki, Jakub, Prochacki, Szymon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2024
• Subjects: Near Field Communication (NFC); Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID); spoofing attack; Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID); Near Field Communication (NFC); spoofing attack
• ISSN: 1877-0509; 1877-0509
• DOI: 10.1016/j.procs.2024.09.253

The growing popularity of IoT (Internet of Things) devices and the ever-increasing multiplicity of their applications ranging from security issues of automated locking systems in homes or hotels to contactless payments. This poses more and more challenges for RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) users to raise the level of security. Problems of RFID-based devices often involve limited access to computing resources or persistent memory, which is associated with the low cost of the devices and their wide range of applications. The subject of this research is the comparative analysis of the power of communication signals between reader and transponder and reader and attacker. Measurement results were quantified, and the signal was compared for two types of modulations: ASK (Amplitude-Shift Keying) and PSK (Phase-Shift Keying), presenting their readings in the form of contrast histograms based on Fourier transforms. Based on the readings obtained, a security method was proposed based on an algorithm that allows 100% detection of attempted attacks on RFID devices based on the signal power emitted by the transponder to the reader. The conditions under which the effectiveness of the method is possible were also determined based on experiments for IoT devices.