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Student Name – Pranay Sable
Student ID- 15870284
Lecturer Name- David Airehrour
COMP821
INFORMATION SECURITY
Securing Proximity Smart Cards

PRANAY SABLE (15870284) 1
Contents
Report Synopsis......................................................................................................................................2
Introduction............................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review-..................................................................................................................................5
Discussion...............................................................................................................................................7
Side-channel attacks and countermeasures.......................................................................................7
1. Timing Analysis Attacks.........................................................................................................7
2. Relay Attacks...........................................................................................................................9
3. Eavesdropping.......................................................................................................................11
Hardware attack and its Countermeasures......................................................................................13
Invasion attacks.............................................................................................................................13
Conclusion- ...........................................................................................................................................16
References............................................................................................................................................17

Report Synopsis
Smartcard Technology has developed throughout the most recent couple of years taking after
striking enhancements in the fundamental equipment and programming stages. It is almost used
in every sector of life around us and has sensitive information in it. So to secure smart cards
has become a foremost priority of developers. This article will provide defense mechanism to
protect this smart tokens on communication and physical layer from hackers and attackers.

Introduction-
What are Proximity smart cards?
A smart card can be defined by its very basic component like integrated circuit which is a
microcontroller which can store any kind of data in its RAM. Smart card system has a reader
and token and a background system. The system is connected to a card reader which can
authenticate a token or card when presented, a system can be a personal computer or a web
browser which uses Secure Socket Layers to secure online transactions. A smart card can have
8KB to 256KB of programmable Random Access Memory with 16-bit of the microprocessor
on it.
The most common application where smart cards used are:
 Wireless Communication(RFID)
 Money Tractions
 Door security system
 Loyalty cards
 Dish TV
 Logistics
Smart cards can be classified into 1) Contact Cards- These are the cards which need to make
physical contact with the reader to establish a connection,and 2) Contactless Cards- These uses
wireless communication channels to establish connection between reader and token.

Need for Security
Smart cards are commonly thought to be tamper resistant, which implies that the expected
usefulness and information held inside such a gadget should not be undermined by altering.
Smart cards additionally offer a choice of security systems that could, for instance, be utilized
to actualize verification or guarantee information privacy. Smart cards are in this manner
utilized as a part of frameworks that give security administrations. While a ''safe and trusted''
token alone is insufficient to ensure security inside a framework. A creator joining smart cards
into a framework ought to consider both attacks that apply to the security of the physical smart
card token and the system as an entirety(Markantonakis, Tunstall, Hancke, Askoxylakis, &
Mayes, 2009). This article gives a brief outline of most common attacks on a smart card,
furthermore looks at the defense mechanism for each attack.
The outline of this report is to have an understanding of most common attacks on the smart
cards security system and their verified countermeasures in real life. Furthermore in discussion
two types of core attacks and their countermeasures are presented with the outlined conclusion.

Literature Review-
To deal with my research topic I have gone through different papers which are related to
security of smart cards and have researched various websites and blogs written by researchers.
Following are a synopsis of literature used to create this research report.
P a p e r S u m m a r y
S e c u r i t y o f p r o x i m i t y
i d e n t i f i c a t i o n s ys t e m s
( G e r h a r d P H a n c k e , 2 0 0 8 )
A s d i s c u s s e d b y ( G e r h a r d P
H a n c k e , 2 0 0 8 ) i n h i s r e p o r t
h a v e s u m m a r i z e d r e l a y a t t a c k s
a n d d i s t a n c e b o u n d i n g
p r o t o c o l s .
C o n f i d e n c e i n s m a r t t o k e n
p r o x i m i t y: R e l a y a t t a c k s
r e v i s i t e d ( G . P . H a n c k e ,
M a ye s , & M a r k a n t o n a k i s , 2 0 0 9 )
( G . P . H a n c k e e t a l . , 2 0 0 9 )
m e n t i o n e d d e t a i l e d s t u d y a n d
i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f r e l a y a t t a c k s
a n d i t s c o u n t e r m e a s u r e s
P r e v e n t i n g r e a l - w o r l d r e l a y
a t t a c k s o n c o n t a c t l e s s d e v i c e
( H e n z l , H a n a c e k , & K a c i c ,
2 0 1 4 )
T h e a u t h o r ( H e n z l e t a l . , 2 0 1 4 )
m e n t i o n e d t h e r e l a y a t t a c k s o n
c o n t a c t l e s s o r N e a r - f i e l d
c o m m u n i c a t i o n ( N F C ) .
S m a r t c a r d a p p l i c a t i o n s a n d
s e c u r i t y( L e n g , 2 0 0 9 )
( Le n g , 2 0 0 9 ) h a v e b r i e f l y
p r o p o s e d e v e r y a t t a c k s c e n a r i o
o n s m a r t c a r d s s u c h a s s i d e
c h a n n e l a t t a c k s ,
e a v e s d r o p p i n g , a n d p h ys i c a l
a t t a c k s

R F ID N o i s y R e a d e r H o w t o
P r e v e n t f r o m E a v e s d r o p p i n g o n
t h e C o m m u n i c a t i o n ? ( S a v r y,
P e b a y- P e yr o u l a , D e h m a s ,
R o b e r t , & R e v e r d y, 2 0 0 7 )
O n t h e b a s i s o f a d e v i c e n a m e d
n o i s y r e a d e r ( S a v r y e t a l . ,
2 0 0 7 ) h a v e i n t r o d u c e d a
d e f e n s e w e a p o n a g a i n s t
E a v e s d r o p p i n g .
“ S o l u t i o n s f o r R F I D S m a r t
T a g g e d C a r d S e c u r i t y
V u l n e r a b i l i t i e s ” ( W i l l i a m s o n ,
T s a y, K a t e e b , & B u r t o n ” , 2 0 1 3 )
( W i l l i a m s o n e t a l . , 2 0 1 3 ) h a v e
p r o p o s e d s o l u t i o n s f o r R F ID
t a g s i n b i o m e d i c a l f i e l d
t h r o u g h t h e a d d i t i o n o f t w o
s e c u r i t y l a ye r s i n t h e
c o m m u n i c a t i o n c h a n n e l
R a n d o m i z e d e x e c u t i o n
a l g o r i t h m s f o r s m a r t c a r d s t o
r e s i s t p o w e r a n a l ys i s a t t a c k s
( Z h a n g , Li a o , Q i u , H u , & S h a ,
2 0 1 2 )
I n t h i s p a p e r , i t i s d i s c u s s e d
3 - b i t a l g o r i t h m t e c h n i q u e s f o r
s e c u r i t y a g a i n s t p o w e r a n a l ys i s
a t t a c k s .
S m a r t C a r d s , T o k e n s , S e c u r i t y
a n d A p p l i c a t i o n
( M a r k a n t o n a k i s , 2 0 0 7 )
T h i s b o o k h a s p r o v i d e d a
b r o a d e r v i e w o f m a n y c a r d s
s ys t e m a n d p r a c t i c a l s e c u r i t y
m e t h o d s u s e d .
R F ID s ys t e m s : A s u r v e y o n
s e c u r i t y t h r e a t s a n d p r o p o s e d
s o l u t i o n s ( P e r i s - Lo p e z ,
H e r n a n d e z - C a s t r o , E s t e v e z -
T a p i a d o r , & R i b a g o r d a , 2 0 0 6 )
( P e r i s - Lo p e z e t a l . ,
2 0 0 6 ) p r e s e n t e d t h r e a t s t o R F ID
s e c u r i t y s ys t e m a n d p r o t e c t i n g
p r i v a c y t h r o u g h F a r a d a y c a g e
a n d b l o c k e r t a g s .

Discussion
Side-channel attacks and countermeasures
A side-channel attack(Kocher,1996) comprises in observing unintended impacts of the
calculation and recovering valuable data from these impacts. There are numerous such impacts,
including the timing of the calculation, the information traded on the I/O channels, the power
utilization, or some other impact of the calculation. Such attacks are considered as non-
obtrusive, on the grounds that they are performed on a working smart card chip, and they, as a
rule, don't require the tampering of the card.
1. Timing Analysis Attacks
These are the most common types of side-channel attacks. To carry out this attack the attacker
must have power system knowledge. By studying the power utilization of smart card one can
tell what type of information is the card possessing within a microchip. Under power attacks,
there are mainly 2 types of attacks which are described below.
Simple power Analysis: -A powerful form of power analysis is to search for patterns within
the acquired power consumption. An attacker can attempt to determine the location of
individual functions within a command. For example, Fig. 2 shows the power consumption of
a smart card during the execution of RSA, looking closely at the acquired power consumption,
a series of events can be seen. There are two types of the event at two different power
consumption levels, with a short dip in the power consumption between each event. This
corresponds well to the square and multiply calculations used in RSA algorithm (Mayes and
Markantonakis, 2008).

Figure 2. Power consumption of an RSA implementation(Markantonakis, 2007)
Differential power analysis- Differential Power Analysis (DPA) actually treats the
consequences of power examination. The estimations are rehashed ordinarily so that the
impacts of noise can be dispensed with by taking normal qualities. The differences are once
the estimations have been finished, which can uncover even better contrasts in the current
utilization of a microcontroller than basic force investigation. With the DPA procedure, the
current utilization is initially measured while the microcontroller is handling known
information, and afterward again while it is handling unknown information(Leng, 2009;
Markantonakis et al., 2009).
Time analysis attacks Countermeasures
As suggested by (Leng, 2009)the least difficult equipment arrangement is to consolidate a
quick acting voltage controller in the chip screens and guarantees that the power utilization is
autonomous of the guidelines and information. The counterfeit noise current generators on the
chip are likewise a successful arrangement. Another arrangement is to utilize a changed
processor plan that dependably draws a steady current. Nevertheless, these methodologies will
marginally expand the power utilization, which is undesirable in applications, for example,
telecommunication. As an option, some more straightforward guard utilizing haphazardly
produced delays (arbitrary holding up time) in the processor extensively builds the trouble of

synchronization between the information and current, without expanding the chip's present
utilization. A comparable methodology is that microcontrollers have their own on-chip clock
generators, by consistently and randomly fluctuating the clock frequency inside certain
breaking points.
There is three software defense mechanism suggested by(Zhang et al., 2012) as follows
“Dummy Instructions Random Insertion (DIRI), Simple Randomized Execution(SRE),
Advanced Randomized Execution with Independent Dummy Instructions(AREIDI)” which
shows significant results to protect smart cards from hackers.
2. Relay Attacks
Relay attacks are basically carried out on the physical layer of the communication channel. In
these case, the raider or attacker needs to have two hardware devices that are a reader and the
token. The attacker sets up communication medium called as relay channel between its devices
(reader and token). Now the attacker’s reader will send signals to legitimate token while the
proxy token is situated near the reader. As the reader will transmit info to the proxy token
which is indeed relayed back to the proxy reader. This proxy reader will send received signal
information to token who will consider this reader as legitimate and responds, this response is
conveyed back to the proxy token which will now acts exactly as the cloned token and transmit
information to the real reader who misinterprets this cloned token as real and gives temporary
access to the attacker(Gerhard P Hancke, 2008). Basically, there are two types of relay attacks.
1)Passive attack and 2) Passive attacks.
The hacker never needs to know the plaintext information or the key K length of he and his
assistant can keep transferring the particular messages between the reader and the real token.
It does along these lines not make any difference if the information is encoded utilizing the
Advanced Encryption Standard AES with a 256-bit key, or a powerless restrictive figure with
a 32-bit key as the resultant ciphertext of either can be transferred simply. The achievement of

the hacker is in this manner free of the application layer convention and encryption calculation
utilized and subsequently application layer cryptographic systems are incapable at forestalling
hand-off attack(G. P. Hancke et al., 2009). So this suggests that even if there is a secret key
with the authenticating user it is not of any use as the hacker can any time be able to easily
intercept the messages and can have a virtually cloned token.
Security measures for relay attacks-
There are many possible ways to been suggested to protect contactless system through the relay
attack.
a) Timing Constraints-
The attacker's equipment needs time to transfer information between the reader and
token and the attacker's reaction is along these lines deferred when contrasted with a
genuine response. Executing time-outs would in this way have all the earmarks of being
an achievable answer for keeping an attacker's "late" reaction from being
acknowledged. Timing limitations are already defined for communication in the ISO
14443 standard furthermore, reader frequently has the ability to likewise actualize a
period out on the token's response. The timing imperatives in the norms, be that as it
may, are infrequently upheld in reader we watched. Setting a period out of reaction
information is likewise not a powerful countermeasure as the postponement presented
by the transfer equipment is substantially less than the run of the mill time-out qualities.
Setting timeouts that would recognize such a little postpone is not useful either in light
of the fact that the variety in the time taken by the token to produce a reaction is prone
to be bigger than the time-out and real reactions would be a danger of being rejected.
(G. P. Hancke et al., 2009). To time-outs measurements can more accurately be studied

by observing the signal response of reader in an oscilloscope or by the proprietary
reader.
b) Distance bounding Protocols.
Separation bounding conventions decide an upper limit for the physical
separation between two conveying parties taking into account the Round-Trip-Time (R-
T-T) of cryptographic test reaction sets. The of the test reaction sets is particularly
intended to take into consideration an exact time estimation, e.g. picking up a response
that takes an anticipated or steady time to compute. To accomplish an exact and trusted
distance bound the convention should be keep running over a special correspondence
channel since it has been demonstrated that routine channels present timing
vulnerability that can dark the deferral presented by a relay attack. There are various
protocols suggested for distance bounding, Brands and Chaum (1993) were the first
to describe distance-bonding protocol since then many protocols have been suggested.
Distance jumping would consequently require adjusted tokens and readers, which
would expand the aggregate framework cost. Distance bounding has been for all intents
and purposes executed in a contact framework yet appropriate contactless channels are
still a work in advancement, with current recommendations raising security, on the
other hand, is a concern (G. P. Hancke et al., 2009).
3. Eavesdropping
An Eavesdropping attack happens when an attacker can recapture the information sent
amid an exchange between a true reader and a token, which requires the hacker to set up in the
region of a likely target. The attacker needs to catch the transmitted signs utilizing appropriate
RF hardware before recuperating and putting away the information of interest. The level of

accomplishment that the attacker will accomplish relies on upon the assets accessible to him.
An aggressor with costly, particular RF estimation gear will have the capacity to listen in from
further away than an attacker with a modest, home-made framework. The hacker is still a
practical danger in any case. A pioneering attacker could recuperate the credit card subtle
elements of the individual standing in front and that he had a small versatile framework that
could listen in at 50 cm. On the other hand, if the aggressor can effectively listen in the
correspondence from 10 m he could sit in a vehicle outside his nearby corner store and record
every one of the truncation held inside.
This attack can also happen when the card is not used and the hacker can trigger the smart card
secretly without the holder being unaware of it. An attacker may don’t have access to the
sensitive but it may know.
Defence Mechanism for Eavesdropping attacks-
In Eavesdropping, an attacker interprets the data transferred between the token and
reader so any system that can secure the information will be the best solution for this
kind of attack. There is various solution proposed as an idea of using shared secret key
or makes the channel more impervious to listening in.
(Wyner, 1975)came with a solution of additive noise in the communication channel
The concept works as follows when a sender sends data over a communication channel
he adds two types of noise N’(t) and N” (t) (with a condition that(N’(t)<< N”(t)), so
data send will be y(t)=N’(t)+N”(t)+i(t) but at the receivers end he will get
y(t)=N’(t)+i(t) and the attacker will have Z(t)=N”(t)+I(t), this concept is called as
wiretapping. But it has a problem in it, there is theoretical no evidence of that the noise
level should be sufficient.
(Savry et al., 2007) came up with a solution for the above-stated problem they
developed a ‘Noisy reader’. As this is a very vast concept will just give the principle of

this device. The rule of the noisy reader. To begin with, the reader creates a loud flag
and emanates it through its receiving wire amid the time of the legitimate answer. So
the reader or a hacker in the loop will see a signal with noise where the legitimate
message is covered up. As the reader knows the commotion it radiated, it can subtract
it from the message it got to recover the legitimate message. This is done by including
these noisy generator object that can generate analogy noise in the ISO 14443 protocol
in the physical communication layer without any modification in ISO 14443 standard
of RFID reader.
One or Two-factor authentication in Eavesdropping attack-
In payment system using smart cards, this defence mechanism is introduced.
Whenever you present your bank credit card or smart card it then asks you for your pin
number and then only proceeds further with the transaction. But nowadays there is a
new concept called ‘pay-wave’ in which just you present your card and everything is
done sounds easy. But think if your card gets stolen and no means to authenticate the
person who is using it and until you block your card the damage is already done. While
installing a door access system with access cards there should be a provision to
authenticate like a pin or biometric verification such to make your system more secure
from eavesdropping.
Above we discussed some attacks and their countermeasures which are on the communication
layer of the smart card system now let’s explore hardware layer of the system.
Hardware attack and its Countermeasures
Invasion attacks are the attacks that require the microchip in a smart card to be evacuated and
specifically altered and tampered physically. This class of attacks can, at any rate in the
hypothesis, trade off any security measure of any microchip. Be that as it may, these attacks

commonly require exceptionally costly hardware, awesome mastery and a vast interest in time
to deliver results. Prying attacks are along these lines considered to be essentially in the domain
of semiconductor makers furthermore, specializes in very much supported labs(Leng, 2009).
Another strategy for physically attacking a chip is to put a test on bus lines so that qualities
being sent over the transport can be seen on an oscilloscope. The noticeable data could
incorporate cryptographic keys and/or the working framework present in ROM. The study of
these attacks is beyond this article but for detailed information can refer (Anderson and
Kuhn,1996) and (Kommerling and Kuhn,1999).
Countermeasures for hardware attacks-
Design- The incorporated circuit configuration can incorporate such countermeasures as glue
logic, obfuscated logic and covered buses which make figuring out harder. Non-unpredictable
memory, buses can be mixed to anticipate reverse engineering of uploaded programming, or
chip plan strategies, through examining.
Figure2 - Secure and Insured chips(Markantonakis, 2007)

Anomaly Detectors: (Markantonakis et al., 2009) suggested this defense mechanism that there
are normally diverse sorts of peculiarity detectors present in a smart card. These are utilized to
identify irregular environmental conditions, for example, a disturbance in the voltage or clock
supplied to the card. A smart card will regularly reset or execute an infinite circle until the
irregular condition is evacuated.

Conclusion-
Smart cards are seen as a decent method for including a ''trusted equipment token'' that offers
extra security administrations. The usage of secure applications on smart cards is diverse to
advancement in different stages as it requires learning of both the abilities of various smart card
items and conceivable attacker techniques focusing on these cards. Picking a smart card item
that is viewed as powerless, based on legacy innovations or is (by and large) insufficient for
designed framework, or neglecting to plan the framework to take into account any conceivable
constraints in smart card innovation could present vulnerabilities that could be abused, as is
obvious from the genuine attackers portrayed previously.
There are various ways to an attacker can attack a system smart card alone cannot assure the
full security of the system in many cases. For example, an intruder can physically damage the
reader and can gain access. This means that there is a need to look beyond smart token or card
and revise the rules regulation and policies for a security system. With every new security
design developed every movement, an attacker or hacker is always ready to challenge, so the
changes and development in the security system should be constant that is the rule of life if you
want to survive in this constantly challenging world the security system should be in its
evolving mode always.

References
Hancke, G. P. (2008). Security of proximity identification systems. University of Cambridge.
Hancke, G. P., Mayes, K. E., & Markantonakis, K. (2009). Confidence in smart token proximity: Relay
attacks revisited. Computers & Security, 28(7), 615-627. doi:10.1016/j.cose.2009.06.001
Henzl, M., Hanacek, P., & Kacic, M. (2014). Preventing real-world relay attacks on contactless
devices. Paper presented at the Security Technology (ICCST), 2014 International Carnahan
Conference on.
Leng, X. (2009). Smart card applications and security. Information Security Technical Report, 14(2),
36-45. doi:10.1016/j.istr.2009.06.006
Markantonakis, K. (2007). Smart cards, tokens, security and applications: Springer Science & Business
Media.
Markantonakis, K., Tunstall, M., Hancke, G., Askoxylakis, I., & Mayes, K. (2009). Attacking smart card
systems: Theory and practice. Information Security Technical Report, 14(2), 46-56.
doi:10.1016/j.istr.2009.06.001
Peris-Lopez, P., Hernandez-Castro, J. C., Estevez-Tapiador, J. M., & Ribagorda, A. (2006). RFID
systems: A survey on security threats and proposed solutions. Paper presented at the
Personal wireless communications.
Savry, O., Pebay-Peyroula, F., Dehmas, F., Robert, G., & Reverdy, J. (2007). RFID Noisy Reader How to
Prevent from Eavesdropping on the Communication? Cryptographic Hardware and
Embedded Systems-CHES 2007, 334-345.
Williamson, A., Tsay, L.-S., Kateeb, I. A., & Burton”, L. (2013). “Solutions for RFID Smart Tagged Card
Security Vulnerabilities”. AASRI Procedia, 4, 282-287. doi:10.1016/j.aasri.2013.10.042
Wyner, A. D. (1975). The wire-tap channel. Bell System Technical Journal, The, 54(8), 1355-1387.
Zhang, D., Liao, X., Qiu, M., Hu, J., & Sha, E. H. M. (2012). Randomized execution algorithms for smart
cards to resist power analysis attacks. Journal of Systems Architecture, 58(10), 426-438.
doi:10.1016/j.sysarc.2012.08.004

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