Industrial Automation branch INA
of Fraunhofer IOSB
Industrial Automation branch INA
of Fraunhofer IOSB

Security through RFID?

Learning Lab Cybersecurity

Demonstration | Threat scenario

The RFID demonstrator shows the vulnerability of commercial locking technologies. The encryption of commercially available RFID locks is broken in many cases. RFID keys can be read and written quickly and with little effort. If an RFID identity is successfully copied, access to locked areas can be gained.

Hardware

  • Commercially available RFID reader/writer units
  • Open source software and firmware for hacking RFID (e.g. for Kali-Linux)

Benefit | Further training possibility

The demonstrator raises awareness of the vulnerability of commercially available locking technologies. The encryption types of RFID systems are of crucial importance for the security of an overall system. It is shown that authentication should be done according to the latest state of the art, e.g. via two-factor authentication.

Research Purpose

Research into the security mechanisms of near-field communication (NFC) technologies is possible with this demonstrator.