Semi-passive RFID development platform for implementing and attacking security tags

In the last few years RFID technology has become a major driver of various businesses like logistics, supply-chain management and access control. Many of these applications base on the successful implementation of security services on the RFID tag side but also on the reader side. In this paper we present an efficient tool for early prototype implementations of RFID applications. We show how the developed semi-passive RFID tags can help implementing and attacking security-enhanced RFID systems. The shown microcontroller-based and FPGA-based tag platforms can operate in the HF and the UHF frequency range. They are very flexible in terms of functionality and support different communication standards like ISO 15693, ISO 14443 and ISO 18000-6C (EPC Gen2). Its main applications are in developing hardware prototypes of passive tags, extending RFID protocols with security functionality and for attacking real RFID devices with side-channel analysis.