Ultra-lightweight Mutual Authentication Protocols: Weaknesses and Countermeasures

Abstract

This paper reviews weaknesses highlighted in existing proposals for a family of mutual authentication protocols belonging to the ultra-lightweight class, which are designed for low-cost RFID systems. This family is suitable for systems where authenticating parties already share secrets, which are updated in each authentication round to counter tracking of the tag. We propose a new ultra-lightweight authentication protocol that builds on the strengths of existing schemes yet incorporates countermeasures to overcome previous weaknesses. Significantly our protocol uses lower resources than previous proposals.