Some thoughts on data security of RFID system

With the continuous improvement of the digital level of the industry, RFID technology has begun to enter all walks of life, bringing many innovations in logistics and supply chain management, anti-counterfeiting traceability, and digital innovative applications. On the whole, the RFID system not only greatly improves the operating efficiency of enterprises through digital methods, but also effectively promotes the innovation of management and business models in different industries, and ultimately benefits the entire society.

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The rapid development of wireless applications, data security issues cannot be ignored

With the continuous improvement of the digital level of the entire society, our work and life are closely related to various wireless communication technologies, including WIFI, Bluetooth, RFID, Lora, and so on. According to the latest official "Statistical Report on Internet Development in China", as of June this year, the number of Chinese Internet users has reached 1.011 billion, making it the world's largest digital society with the strongest application penetration.

On the one hand, these wireless communication technologies have brought a lot of convenience to our work and life, on the other hand, they also make us face inevitable data security threats. Nowadays, problems such as data leakage, abuse, and privacy violations have become quite common and have brought great challenges to the entire society.

In fact, the data security of wireless transmission has always been the focus of people's attention. Compared with wireless communication, wired communication is more reliable in terms of security, but its application cost is too high and flexibility is not good. From the perspective of the overall network development trend, with the continuous development of the times, the proportion of wireless applications will definitely become higher and higher. Therefore, the security issue of wireless transmission will always be concerned by people.

When the RFID system is operating, the communication between the tag and the reader is realized through the transmission of electromagnetic waves. As a wireless communication method, there must be certain security risks in the transmission process. For example, an attacker can send a large number of unrecognizable false or wrong information to the RFID system, which can cause the RFID system to deny service or interrupt communication.

Due to the low cost and low power consumption of RFID tags, this largely limits the processing and computing capabilities of the system and the ability to implement security algorithms. Under normal circumstances, the security risks of the RFID system we refer to refer to the security risks of the radio frequency part, which can be roughly divided into three aspects: tags, readers, and communication links.

RFID data security has a long way to go

Because the cost, craft and power consumption of the label are restricted, the RFID system generally does not configure a very complete security module, and its data encryption method may be cracked. As far as the characteristics of passive tags are concerned, they are more susceptible to attacks from energy consumption channels.

In the front-end air interface link, due to the openness of the wireless transmission signal itself, the data is subject to greater security threats. Illegal users can intercept data by using unauthorized readers, block communication channels for denial-of-service attacks; fake user identities, tamper with, delete tag data, etc. The safety of this link is the focus of most people's attention, and it is also an important part of the need for research breakthroughs.

After the reader receives the data sent by the tag, in addition to the data filtering, time filtering, and management functions of the middleware, the reader only provides a user business interface, and cannot provide an interface that allows users to improve their safety performance.

In the safe production technology of RFID products, on the one hand, it is the discussion of the safety factor algorithm and application, including the design of the encryption mechanism, especially the completeness of the application steps; on the other hand, it is the discussion of DFS (security) from the perspective of the system. Coefficient design) technology.

At present, both symmetric encryption technology (DES, AES or national secret algorithm SM1), or asymmetric encryption technology (RSA, ECC or national secret algorithm SM2) have developed relatively mature. And, with the progress of the process, the application cost has gradually dropped to an acceptable level.

For RFID technology, the system itself not only has powerful functions, but also a wide range of applications. Moreover, with the continuous improvement and development of RFID technology, RFID technology is bound to achieve very considerable and broad development prospects in the future development. However, at various stages such as RFID readers, RFID tags, and Internet access, data and information have security risks, and security and privacy problems have long become one of the important factors that contain RFID technology.

In some sensitive areas, such as finance, anti-counterfeiting, identification, etc., there are stricter standards for product security. Therefore, continuous research and development of security methods to protect the information in RFID tags will not only enable better implementation and operation of RFID projects, but also create better conditions for the popularization and application of RFID technology.