Exposing clone RFID tags at the reader

The basic premise of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is that objects are marked with “tags” which emit unique “serial numbers” obtainable by “readers” using radio signals. An increasingly popular RFID standard, Class-One Generation-Two (ISO 18000-6c), is expected to play an important role in the widespread adoption of the technology. However, tags of this standard can have their serial numbers easily duplicated or “cloned”. Consequently, clone tags, and the objects they are attached to (e.g. counterfeit goods) are assumed to be the original tag and hence object. To address this threat, this work offers a new solution to detect “clones”: when multiple tags are active at a reader, “anti-collision algorithm” may expose the implausibility of tags which contain duplicate EPC values. This work begins with an exploration of simulation results from previous work that suggested a possible way to expose clone tags at the reader, and proceeds to confirm these results as a solution to tag cloning exposure using EPC Class One Generation Two hardware. The new solution reported here has the advantage of being relatively simple and implementable on existing hardware making it an additional security solution and therefore an important contribution to RFID security.