Lightweight Mutual Authentication Protocols for Low Cost RFID Tags

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a promising technology that has been used in many different ways and served numerous purposes in many fields. As a result, a lot of sectors invest in it. However, as it offers advantages it is also associated with security risks. Which is a big issue since there is sensitive data can be exchanged using RFID technology that can compromise the privacy of the involved parties. Due to the importance of security and privacy, researches have developed Ultra-lightweight Mutual Authentication Protocols (UMAP) that were originally designed to prevent these vulnerabilities and then discovered later that it still has some. In this paper, Gossamer protocol that belongs to UMAP family (due to its simplicity and its low cost) will be discussed. The reason behind choosing this protocol that it is inspired by Strong Authentication and Strong Integrity protocol (SASI) scheme and developed to avoid its weaknesses [1]. Then again, another vulnerabilities have appeared in the Gossamer protocol and made it less secure and exposed to external attacks. This paper proposes two new solutions inspired by Gossamer protocol. These new protocols can prevent Denial of Service (Dos) attacks or de-synchronization attacks that can be successfully held against Gossamer protocol.