RFID Forward Secure Authentication Protocol: Flaw and Solution

RFID is a widely adopted technology in the enterprises for inventory checking and management. Due to the ubiquitous nature of RFID, attackers can easily launch attacks over wireless channel whenever there is a flaw on the RFID authentication protocol being used. A successful attack can imply a substantial loss in the enterprise and may trigger a series of problems. In this paper, we investigate a useful type of RFID authentication protocol, called forward secure authentication schemes, and found that these schemes are not secure. In particular, we present attacks that can desynchronize the authentication key of the RFID server and the tag so that they loss the ability to communicate or identify each other. On the other hand, we propose a solution to overcome this attack. We also provide a formal proof to show that our solution is secure under this attack based on the Universally Composable Model.