On Detecting Relay Attacks on RFID Systems Using Qubits

As RFID technology is being widely used in access control systems to identify and track both objects and people, relay attacks on RFID systems continue to pose serious threats to security. To mitigate relay attacks, distance bounding protocols can be used. Until recently, all distance bounding protocols were based on classical cryptography and communication techniques. In this paper, we take a closer look at a recently proposed protocol by Jannati and Ardeshir-Larijani [Quantum Information Processing 2016, 18] to detect relay attacks using qubits. We first observe that the protocol has a weakness which allows an adversary to mount a successful attack on the protocol. We then propose a countermeasure to restore security and compare the fixed protocol with the state of the art.