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

Near Field Communication (NFC) has been used for short range communications in a number of applications for consumer electronics devices. Specifically, NFC has been used in electronic payment systems. To ensure secure communications, security protocols for various NFC applications have been proposed. Recently, a conditional privacy preserving security protocol was introduced. However this paper demonstrates that the protocol is vulnerable to two impersonations attacks and then proposes a new secure pseudonym-based NFC protocol that eliminates vulnerabilities of the previous security protocol. Security and performance analysis results confirm that the proposed protocol could solve security problems of the previously introduced NFC security protocol with a marginal computational cost increase <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> .

As the technology of mobile devices spreads fast, the price of mobile devices is getting cheaper. Most of the people have mobile devices, and these devices have the technology of near field communication (NFC). With the long time development and research, the mobile devices use NFC technology on the payment and authentication applications, and replace the smartcard, the access control card, and the credit card by using the card emulation mode. It helps the development of NFC applications. In recent years, more and more users begin using NFC technology on mobile payment and authentication. Many researches have proposed the related NFC authentication protocols, but their schemes are still lack of some security properties and functions, which are necessary for NFC authentication protocols. In this paper, we propose a secure and efficient NFC authentication scheme between two NFC devices by the help of the authentication server that provides mutual authentication.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are widely used to provide users with convenient services such as health-care, and smart home. To provide convenient services, sensor nodes in WSN environments collect and send the sensing data to the gateway. However, it can suffer from serious security issues because susceptible messages are exchanged through an insecure channel. Therefore, secure authentication protocols are necessary to prevent security flaws in WSN. In 2020, Moghadam et al. suggested an efficient authentication and key agreement scheme in WSN. Unfortunately, we discover that Moghadam et al.’s scheme cannot prevent insider and session-specific random number leakage attacks. We also prove that Moghadam et al.’s scheme does not ensure perfect forward secrecy. To prevent security vulnerabilities of Moghadam et al.’s scheme, we propose a secure and lightweight mutual authentication protocol for WSNs (WSN-SLAP). WSN-SLAP has the resistance from various security drawbacks, and provides perfect forward secrecy and mutual authentication. We prove the security of WSN-SLAP by using Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic, Real-or-Random (ROR) model, and Automated Verification of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulation. In addition, we evaluate the performance of WSN-SLAP compared with existing related protocols. We demonstrate that WSN-SLAP is more secure and suitable than previous protocols for WSN environments.

The authentication system plays a crucial role in the context of GLObal MObility NETwork (GLOMONET) where Mobile User (MU) often need to seamless and secure roaming service over multiple Foreign Agents (FA). However, designing a robust and anonymous authentication protocol along with a user privacy is essential and challenging task. Due to the resource constrained property of mobile terminals, the broadcast nature of a wireless channel, mobility environments are frequently exposed to several attacks. Many researchers focus their interests on designing an efficient and secure mobile user authentication protocol for mobility networks. Very recently (in 2018), Xu et al presented the novel anonymous authentication system for roaming in GLOMONET, and insisted that their protocol is more secure than existing authentication protocols. The security strength of Xu et al.’s authentication protocol is analysed and identified that the protocol is vulnerable to stolen verifier attack, privileged insider attack, impersonation attack and denial of service attack. In-fact, the protocol suffers from clock synchronization problem and cannot afford local password-verification to detect wrong passwords quickly. As a remedy, we proposed an efficient and robust anonymous authentication protocol for mobility networks. The proposed mobile user authentication protocol achieves the provable security and has the ability to resist against numerous network attacks. Besides, the correctness of the novel authentication protocol is validated using formal security tool called AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols & Applications). Finally, the performance analysis and simulation results reveals that the proposed authentication protocol is computationally efficient and practically implementable in resource limited mobility environments.

The day-to-day changes in the technology have paved way for many new inventions. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is one among the new inventions in recent years. The NFC technology which is installed in smart devices and felicitates the customers to transfer their data, make payments and many more activities. In this modern era, people are much away from cash, moving from traditional way of payment to the modern ways from cash transactions to paying through online mode through the smart devices. To perform this payment activities NFC technology is used. The research was carried out with 100 NFC using respondents and the sampling tools used were Factor analysis, Correlation Analysis, Regression Analysis. The sampling method used for the study is simple random sampling. The research was carried out and Cronbach’s alpha reliability test proved to be consistent and reliable. The researcher has identified the factors influencing to use the NFC technology and also found the most influencing factors. The concluding observations are Services and Relative advantage is the most influencing factors from the study.

A Biometric Authentication Security (BAS) protocol is a method by which a person's unique physiological or behavioral characteristics are used to verify their identity. These characteristics can include fingerprints, facial features, voice patterns, and more. Biometric authentication has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its convenience and perceived security benefits. However, ensuring that the BAS protocols are secure and cannot be easily compromised. . Developing a highly secure biometric authentication protocol is challenging, and proving its correctness is another challenge. In this work, we present a modern mechanism for formally analyzing biometric authentication security protocol by taking a Aadhaar Level-0 Iris-based Authentication Protocol as a use case. The mechanism uses formal methods to formally verify the security of the Aadhaar Level-0 Iris-based Authentication protocol, and is based on the widely-used BAN logic (Buruccu, Abadi, and Needham). Using Scyther model checker we analyze the existing biometric authentication protocol and have shown its effectiveness in identifying potential security vulnerabilities. The proposed mechanism is based on a set of security requirements that must be met for the protocol to be considered secure. These requirements include the need for the protocol to be resistant to replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, and impersonation attacks. The mechanism also considers the possibility of an attacker obtaining the biometric data of a legitimate user.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is used for a wide range of security-critical applications such as payment or access control. Although such applications require secured data transfer, the NFC protocol does not include transport layer security. Other protocols that are built on top of NFC, such as the NFC data exchange format (NDEF), only provide insufficient security measures. Therefore, implemented security solutions are often application specific and do not follow well-established standards. To facilitate NFC usage in the Internet of Things (IoT) where millions of devices need to be secured, an efficient and sufficiently secured NFC-based protocol needs to be developed. In this paper, we present the Quick and Secured NFC (QSNFC) protocol. Our protocol is capable of performing more efficient key agreements for recurring connections, and thus, can be used as an efficient alternative to the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.

Nowadays; the adoption of Internet of things (IoT) technologies and applications in everyday is rising. IoT technology such as Near Field Communication (NFC) is vastly adopted due to its short range frequencies, making it a good candidate for token based security access control applications such as door systems and attendance systems. However, due to the miniature size of NFC tags; its clear text contents and unprotected communication channel between tag-reader-database; NFC technology is prone to security attacks such as the man in the middle; denial of services (DOS) and etc. These attacks lead to leakage of user critical data which could impact any organization adopting NFC applications and technologies. In this paper; NFC vulnerability, causing both security and privacy attacks studies in depth. By focusing on attacks such as DOS and data corruptions; existing risk assessment models are evaluated using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach. Best practice in mitigating these attacks is presented as well. A case study on an existing NFC access control application is then used to demonstrate the effectiveness of best practice solutions proposed.  Â

SE-AKA: A secure and efficient group authentication and key agreement protocol for LTE networks

Development in technology bring digital world to be border-less. It's proven through a developed technology, when trade and transaction can be done not only using real money but also virtual one. Shopping process using virtual money has even more supported by existed Near Field Communication (NFC) device. This particular device works using radio frequency. In the year of 2011, Google was integrating this device into a Android-based cell phone, which made transactions using virtual money gradually developed. E-Ticket is one of the utmost services in online trading. E-ticket is basically a paper-less electronic document, which commonly used for passenger tickets of a transportation system. One of the aims in using NFC in daily life can be implemented within public transportation application. This particular research offers a application prototype for train ticket purchasing and exterminating that use a Near Field Communication (NFC) integrated cell phone. This train ticketing application integrated with NFC device that had been planted in an Android 2.3.3 Operation System based cell phone. Designed system made for passenger interface and train conductor interface. NFC technology applied within two created applications. Cell phone that is used within this research is Google Nexus S, which has been integrated with NFC device; therefore created application can provide a circumstance where applications for passenger and conductor are able to work as a single entity of train ticketing application.

The near field communication (NFC) technology helps save both time and power when compared with Bluetooth and other similar technologies. However, NFC is vulnerable to various networking attacks such as message modification. In this work, a secure processing technique is introduced to protect the NFC devices and associated data from several attacks. A certificate record is added to the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) message to enhance security. The proposed processing technique in a NFC system checks the authenticity of the sender, then if appropriate, processes the incoming NDEF messages and stores them in device memory. Using MATLAB, an NFC system with the proposed processing technique is simulated. Simulation results suggest that the processing time increases linearly as the certificate size increases and the processing time remains almost the same for various record sizes. It is also observed that the proposed protocol offers better security by detecting tag manipulation, certificate modification, etc. The proposed secure processing technique for NFC can be extended to enhance security in ubiquitous computing and mobile communication.

Nowadays, Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is being experimented for payment systems to perform purchase transactions without physical contact, without entering a PIN code or a signature. An NFC purchase transaction is mainly executed between a client's payment device (NFC bank card or NFC smartphone) and a merchant's payment device. The latter may be either an NFC point of sale machine for big traders (in a department store for example), or a simple NFC payment terminal attached to the outside of a smartphone for small traders. In this paper, we propose a new secure cloud-based NFC payment architecture for small traders: which allows them to benefit from their smartphones integrating NFC technology for use directly as NFC merchant payment devices, without needing to buy an external NFC payment terminal. In addition, the proposal introduces a new protocol aiming to secure NFC payment transactions.

Integration of current Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) system with the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology provides Ubiquitous Learning Environment (ULE) in education. The utilization of NFC technology in U-Learning concept will help to improve accessibility and encourage collaborative learning methods in the education sector. In this paper, we conduct a study to investigate eleven (11) adoptions factors of U-Learning with NFC and ranking them using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach. We also utilized Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Technology Readiness (TR), and combination of TAM and TR (TRAM) as theoretical framework. We have identified TRAM as the best tool based on literature review and utilized the theory to propose an NFC-Enabled Ubiquitous Technology model. The model was utilized to design a questionnaire for survey about user acceptance. Results from the online survey were analyzed using AHP in an absolute measurement approach method. Results from AHP show that optimism is the most influencing factor in adoption of U-Learning using NFC technology followed by innovativeness and accessibility. Finally, this paper contributes in designing an NFC research model.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is widely used today in many useful applications, such as contactless payment, identification, and file exchange. Due to the limitations on computation, power, and cost of NFC devices, NFC systems are often lack of encryption or weakly encrypted, leaving them exposed to security attacks. One solution for this problem is to install strong cryptographic protocols on NFC devices. However, it involves upgrading and revoking deployed NFC devices, which is costly and impractical. Moreover, encryption algorithms are usually considered expensive for resource constrained NFC devices in terms of computation overhead and energy consumption. In this paper, aiming at securing NFC from eavesdropping at physical layer, we propose SecNFC, a solution that changes the signals on the initiators to hide the communications, but does not require any changes to the targets. In this work, for the first time, we address a practical problem of synchronization offset between two NFC terminals, which can be exploited by an eavesdropper to compromise the transmitted bits. SecNFC takes into consideration the synchronization offset and solves the challenge by introducing blocking signals around the transition point when the target switches load between on and off. With this solution, even with the existence of synchronization offset, eavesdroppers cannot extract any bit information from eavesdropping. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of SecNFC. We also build a testbed based on USRP software defined radio and off-the-shelf NFC tags to evaluate SecNFC in a real-world environment. Both simulation and experimental results show that SecNFC can efficiently prevent NFC from eavesdropping with a slight and tolerable decoding performance degradation at the initiator.

Counterfeit products, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, have plagued the international community for decades. To combat this problem, many anti-counterfeiting approaches have been proposed. They use either Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) or Near Field Communication (NFC) physical tags affixed to the products. Current anti-counterfeiting approaches detect two counterfeiting attacks: (1) modifications to a product's tag details, such as changing the expiration date; and (2) cloning of a genuine product's details to reuse on counterfeit products. In addition, these anti-counterfeiting approaches track-and-trace the physical locations of products as the products flow through supply chains. Existing approaches suffer from two main drawbacks. They cannot detect tag reapplication attacks, wherein a counterfeiter removes a legitimate tag from a genuine product and reapplies it to a counterfeit or expired product. Second, most existing approaches typically rely on a central server to authenticate products. This is not scalable and creates tremendous processing burden on the server, since significant volumes of products flood through the supply chain's nodes. In addition, centralized supply chains require substantial data storage to store authentication records for all products. Moreover, as with centralized systems, traditional supply chains inherently have the problem of a single-point of failure. The thesis of this dissertation is that a robust, scalable, counterfeiting-resistant supply chain that addresses the above drawbacks and can be simultaneously achieved by (i) using a combination of NFC tags on products and a distributed ledger such as blockchain for reapplication-proof, decentralized, and transparent product authentication (ii) a novel game-theoretical consensus protocol for enforcing true decentralization, and enhancing the protocol's security and performance. In this dissertation, we first propose a new Tag Reapplication Detection (TRD) system to detect reapplication attacks using low-cost NFC tags and public key cryptography. To detect reapplication attacks, TRD tracks the number of times a tag has been read in the supply chain using a 'central' authentication server. Second, leveraging the blockchain technology, we propose the Block-Supply Chain, a transformation of TRD into a decentralized supply chain. In this chain, each node maintains a blockchain (distributed public ledger) per product. This blockchain comprises chained blocks, where each is an authentication event. The Block-Supply Chain can detect tag reapplication attacks and can replace the centralized supply chain design, thus overcoming the centralization issues. One of the fundamental characteristics of blockchain technology is the consensus protocol. Consensus protocols ensure that all nodes in the blockchain network agree on the validity of a