Quantum-Resistant Authentication Scheme for RFID Systems Using Lattice-Based Cryptography

TL;DR

RFID systems in IoT face quantum threats, and many prior protocols rely on secure channels that are not always available. The authors propose a lattice-based mutual authentication scheme grounded in the ISIS problem, secure even when both tag-reader and reader-server channels are insecure. They provide semi-formal security analysis, formal AVISPA verification, and comprehensive performance evaluations, demonstrating strong resistance to MITM, replay, impersonation, and reflection attacks, along with anonymity, unlinkability, and scalability. This work is the first to deliver quantum-resistant RFID authentication without a trusted reader-server channel, offering practical implications for secure, scalable IoT deployments.

Abstract

We propose a novel quantum-resistant mutual authentication scheme for radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. Our scheme uses lattice-based cryptography and, in particular, achieves quantum-resistance by leveraging the hardness of the inhomogeneous short integer solution (ISIS) problem. In contrast to prior work, which assumes that the reader-server communication channel is secure, our scheme is secure even when both the reader-server and tag-reader communication channels are insecure. Our proposed protocol provides robust security against man-in-the-middle (MITM), replay, impersonation, and reflection attacks, while also ensuring unforgeability and preserving anonymity. We present a detailed security analysis, including semi-formal analysis and formal verification using the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool. In addition, we analyze the storage, computation, and communication costs of the proposed protocol and compare its security properties with those of existing protocols, demonstrating that our scheme offers strong security guarantees. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first quantum-resistant authentication protocol for RFID systems that comprehensively addresses the insecurity of both the reader-server and tag-reader communication channels.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: The figure shows our system model.
• Figure 2: The figure shows the proposed authentication scheme. The notation $x \xleftarrow{R} S$ denotes that $x$ is chosen uniformly at random from the set $S$. The notation $x \stackrel{?}{=} y$ indicates that the recipient checks whether the two values $x$ and $y$ are equal and aborts the protocol if the test fails.
• Figure 3: The figure shows the results obtained using the AVISPA ATSE tool.
• Figure 4: The figure shows the variation of the storage costs at different entities versus $m$. It also depicts the total storage cost of the proposed protocol.
• Figure 5: The figure shows the variation of the communication costs of different channels versus $m$. It also depicts the total communication cost of the proposed protocol.

Theorems & Definitions (1)

• Definition 1: ISIS Problem isis