LAUSR

Counterfeited products are costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Radio frequency identification(RFID) technology provides a promising solution for this problem, wherein each product is fitted with a secure tag, which is difficult to forge. However, RFID technology is faced with numerous security threats, for example, if the communication link between the reader and the tag is compromised, then it will be possible for a malicious adversary to obtain the private data stored on the device. Tag cloning attacks have also been demonstrated to be feasible, which severely undermines the capabilities of the RFID technology to protect against counterfeiting. One solution to this problem is the use of authentication protocol, however, existing schemes do not support mutual authentication and are still vulnerable to tag cloning attacks. In this paper, a new security mechanism is proposed, which consists of a lightweight three-flights-mutual authentication protocol and an-anti-counterfeit tag design. The proposed solution is based on combining the Rabin encryption scheme with physically unclonable functions (PUF) technology. The protocol security is formally analysed and compares favorably with existing schemes. Our results show that the proposed design is up-to 50% more area-efficient compared to those based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC).