A Platform for RFID Security and Privacy Administration

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of the RFID Guardian, the first-ever unified platform for RFID security and privacy administration. The RFID Guardian resembles an “RFID firewall”, enabling individuals to monitor and control access to their RFID tags by combining a standard-issue RFID reader with unique RFID tag emulation capabilities. Our system provides a platform for coordinated usage of RFID security mechanisms, offering fine-grained control over RFID-based auditing, key management, access control, and authentication capabilities. We have prototyped the RFID Guardian using off-the-shelf components, and our experience has shown that active mobile devices are a valuable tool for managing the security of RFID tags in a variety of applications, including protecting low-cost tags that are unable to regulate their own usage.