NFC Communications-based Mutual Authentication Scheme for the Internet of Things

The integration of Near Field Communication (NFC) into consumer electronics devices has opened up opportunities for the internet of things applications such as electronic payment, electronic ticketing and sharing contacts, etc.. Meanwhile, various security risks should not be ignored. Therefore, all kinds of different protocols have been released with the purposing of securing NFC communications. Lately, a pseudonym-based NFC protocol for the consumer Internet of things was presented. They claimed that their scheme could withstand man-in-the middle attack headed from their scheme could provide mutual authentication. This study presents a security analysis on their scheme and finds that their scheme is not really secure against man-in-the-middle attack. Subsequently, this paper proposes an enhancement for purpose of thwarting this security attack. The security and performance analyses show that the enhancement is secure and efficient while keeping privacy preserving.