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Detecting relay attacks on RFID communication systems using quantum bits

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Abstract

RFID systems became widespread in variety of applications because of their simplicity in manufacturing and usability. In the province of critical infrastructure protection, RFID systems are usually employed to identify and track people, objects and vehicles that enter restricted areas. The most important vulnerability which is prevalent among all protocols employed in RFID systems is against relay attacks. Until now, to protect RFID systems against this kind of attack, the only approach is the utilization of distance-bounding protocols which are not applicable over low-cost devices such as RFID passive tags. This work presents a novel technique using emerging quantum technologies to detect relay attacks on RFID systems. Recently, it is demonstrated that quantum key distribution (QKD) can be implemented in a client–server scheme where client only requires an on-chip polarization rotator that may be integrated into a handheld device. Now we present our technique for a tag–reader scenario which needs similar resources as the mentioned QKD scheme. We argue that our technique requires less resources and provides lower probability of false alarm for the system, compared with distance-bounding protocols, and may pave the way to enhance the security of current RFID systems.

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Notes

  1. Normally Hilbert space is defined with additional conditions which we are not concerned with in this paper.

  2. Qubits could be prepared by the reader or a third party resource for the use of tag.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Elham Kashefi and Anna Pappa for their useful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran

    Hoda Jannati & Ebrahim Ardeshir-Larijani

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  1. Hoda Jannati
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  2. Ebrahim Ardeshir-Larijani
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Correspondence to Hoda Jannati.

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Jannati, H., Ardeshir-Larijani, E. Detecting relay attacks on RFID communication systems using quantum bits. Quantum Inf Process 15, 4759–4771 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-016-1418-5

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