Enhancing Radio Frequency Identification Application Data Security, Using Rivest Shamir Aldeman Algorithm

Abstract

Despite several verification and authentication models existing in research, few have explored RFID application to enhance data security and integrity. The security challengewith RFID data security is that whenever an RFIDEPC Gen 2 tag enters an RFID field or a reader’s interrogation zone it transmits its’ data to that reader whether it is prompted by the reader or not. This research explored RFID application by carrying out an in-depth assessment of the said technology while critically evaluating its cons in regards to data security.The technique selected to mitigate the data security challenge in RFID application was public key cryptography (RSA algorithm in particular was selected). This resulted in the design of a new tag called Enhanced EPC Gen 2 RSA tag, which was as a result of integrating RSA algorithm into a normal EPC Gen 2 tag. The data for this research work focused on securing was contained in both the EPC Gen 2 tag and Enhanced EPC Gen 2 RFID tag. This research carried out comparison experiments on both tags by exposing them to the RF interrogation zone of a reader. The result were as follows;The EPC Gen 2 tag immediately responded to the reader and transmitted its’ tag data, while the Enhanced EPC Gen 2 RSA tag first sent its encrypted password to the reader to be matched with that stored in the database, if both passwords matched data transmission was authorized. If the passwords did not match, further communication between the tag and reader was blocked hence the data in the Enhanced Gen 2 RSA tag was secured.