RFID 'not safe from DoS attacks'

Researchers say they have proven that effective attacks can be launched against RFID tags.

In tests, generation one standard RFID tags and readers were unable to function after they were overloaded with data, researchers at Edith Cowan University in Perth said in a report published this month.

Academics in the Scissec research group at Edith Cowan University warned: "Vulnerabilities in the newer UHF style of RFID tags have been found and are of concern for anyone trying to implement a RFID system that would have mission critical or human life issues involved in it."

Although many companies are trialling RFID tagging in their supply chain, the tags are not commonly used in life-critical situations today. However, the tags are used by the US military to track supplies.

Generation two standard RFID tags could also be disrupted, according to the researchers. Generation two tags are more sophisticated than generation one tags, and can operate at four different speeds.

RFID relies on tags being identified by readers when they are within range. Readers communicate with the tags by hopping between a number of channels within an allocated band of frequencies (902-928MHz). It was thought this provided security because the reader could hop between frequencies when encountering interference.

In the tests, the Australian researchers saturated the frequency range used by the tags, which prevented the tags from talking to the readers. The Australian researchers said in their report that the use of frequency hopping would not stop DoS attacks, as the tags themselves could not hop frequencies.

They demonstrated that from a range of one metre they could disrupt communications between tags and readers, putting the tag into a "communication fault state".

While the readers can hop frequencies in the allocated band range if they encounter interference, RFID tags cannot as they regard the entire band as one channel.

Last month, Dutch researchers announced the successful creation of a virus capable of infecting RFID tags.

Tom Espiner writes for ZDNet UK