Abstract
Internet of Things is one of the most important components of modern technological systems. It allows the real time synchronization and connectivity of devices with each other and with the rest of the world. The radio frequency identification system is used as node identification mechanism in the Internet of Thing networks. Since Internet of Things involve wireless channel for communication that is open for all types of malicious adversaries, therefore many security protocols have been proposed to ensure encryption over wireless channel. To reduce the overall cost of radio frequency identification enabled Internet of Thing network security, the researchers use simple bitwise logical operations such as XOR, AND, OR, and Rot and have proposed many ultralightweight mutual authentication protocols. However, almost all the previously proposed protocols were later found to be vulnerable against several attack models. Recently, a new ultralightweight mutual authentication protocol has been proposed which involves only XOR and Rotation functions in its design and claimed to be robust against all possible attack models. In this article, we have performed cryptanalysis of this recently proposed ultralightweight mutual authentication protocol and found many pitfalls and vulnerabilities in the protocol design. We have exploited weak structure of the protocol messages and proposed three attacks against the said protocol: one desynchronization and two full disclosure attacks.
Introduction
The Internet of Thing (IoT) network refers to the Internet enabled devices which can be accessed globally on real time basis. These globally connected devices are being used in large number of applications such as smart grids, autonomous vehicles, and wearables. To communicate with the IoT nodes, object identification is a primary requirement. The identification techniques that are being used for node discovery are radio frequency identification (RFID) system, barcodes, quick response (QR) codes, and so on. The RFID system is preferred by the IoT networks due to high scan speed, unique identification, and non-line of sight scanning capabilities. The applications that use radio frequency system for node management are termed as RFID-enabled IoT networks. The identity management system for such platforms mainly involves three components: the tag (T), the reader (R), and the backend database (D). The T is attached to the device which needs to be identified and the R is connected to the D which contains detail information of all the associated tags.
Since the R communicates with the T over a wireless channel which is open for all types of adversaries (A), therefore some cryptographic suites must be incorporated to secure this channel. The traditional cryptographic methods are not suitable to ensure the security because of resources constraints at tag’s side. Pedro Peris-Lopez et al. 1 proposed an ultralightweight category of authentication protocols for extremely low-cost computational systems, that is, the passive RFID tags. The protocols from this class involves simple bitwise logical operations in their designs to conform to the Electronic Product Code (EPC) C1G2 standards. According to the EPC C1G2 standard, a low-cost passive tag contains 10K gates out of which only 4K gates are allocated for the security-related tasks.
Since 2006, several ultralightweight mutual authentication protocols (UMAPs) have been presented. Some of the prominent authentication protocols are lightweight mutual authentication protocol (LMAP), 1 efficient mutual authentication protocol (EMAP), 2 strong authentication strong integrity (SASI) protocol, 3 robust confidentiality integrity and authentication (RCIA) protocol, 4 and pseudo-Kasami code based mutual authentication protocol (KMAP). 5 However, to the best of our knowledge, almost all the previously proposed UMAPs were reported to be vulnerable against multiple denial-of-service (DoS), desynchronization, and full disclosure attacks. Recently, Tewari and Gupta proposed a new UMAP using only XOR and Rot functions. 6 The authors have used several formal and structural security analysis tools to prove the robustness of the proposed UMAP against all possible attacks. In this article, we have performed cryptanalysis of their UMAP and highlighted some structural weaknesses. We have proposed three attack models against Tewari and Gupta protocol: one desynchronization and two full disclosure attacks.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section “Related work” presents the literature review. Section “Tewari and Gupta protocol” introduces the authentication algorithm followed by detail security analysis in section “Security analysis of Tewari and Gupta protocol.” Section “Comparison” analyzes our cryptanalysis approach and some recent attack models. Finally, section “Conclusion” concludes the paper.
Related work
The RFID system is one of the widely deployed identification schemes in the field of ubiquitous computing. The system uses radio frequency for unique and automatic identification of the objects. The RFID system mainly comprises three components: the tag (T), the reader (R), and the backend database (D). The T is a low-cost electronic chip that communicates with the R over the wireless channel for basic identification and authentication. The D stores the detailed information about all the tags and the reader. Usually, the channel between the R and the D is considered to be secure since there is no power constraint at the database side and traditional cryptographic algorithms (advanced encryption standard (AES), international data encryption algorithm (IDEA), elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), etc.) can be used to ensure the security and privacy. Because of limited computational capability at the tag’s side, these traditional cryptographic algorithms cannot be used to secure the channel between the T and the R. The level of the security and the privacy of an RFID system is directly associated with the cost of the T. The high-cost tags can support greater on-chip resources and therefore can support standardized encryption algorithms. While the low-cost passive RFID tags can support only bitwise logical operators to secure the wireless channel between the R and the T. In 2007, Chien classified the cryptographic protocols in four major categories: 3
Full-fledged protocols: These protocols include classical cryptographic techniques such as the symmetric cryptography, the asymmetric cryptography, and the hash function. Because of adequate on-chip resources, active high cost RFID tags are capable to support security protocols under the umbrella of full-fledge class.
Simple protocol: This class of protocols can incorporate only pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) and the one-way hash function.
Lightweight protocols: The protocols fall under this class can support lightweight PRNG and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) and are suitable for many IoT applications.
Ultralightweight protocol: According to the EPC C1G2 standard, the protocols can support only 4K gate equivalents and therefore, only bitwise logical operators and ultralightweight primitives (
In this research paper, our focus will be on ultralightweight protocols. Over the last decade, the researchers have proposed many (over 1000 protocols) UMAPs. Unfortunately, most of the previously proposed UMAPs were reported to be vulnerable against simple DoS and full disclosure attacks. A comprehensive survey of the UMAPs and their weaknesses is presented as follows.
The foundation of UMAPs was laid by Pedro Peris-Lopez in 2006. Pedro Peris proposed three ultralightweight authentication protocols, that is, LMAP,
1
EMAP,
2
and M2AP (minimalistic mutual authentication protocol).
7
All these protocols use triangular functions
In 2007, Chien proposed the SASI protocol.
3
Chien introduced a non-triangular function, that is,
Later, Gossamer,
16
Yeh et al.,
17
and David–Parsad
18
protocols were proposed. These protocols used single
After 2011, the strength of UMAPs was enhanced using multiple
In 2016, H Luo et al.
22
proposed a new ultralightweight primitive, that is, the conversion function
From above discussion, we can conclude that since last decade numerous UMAPs have been proposed1–5,7,16–18,20,22 but the cryptanalysis models highlighted their weakness and made these protocols unsuitable for practical tags11–13,15,20,21,23 Therefore, there is an immense need of new ultralightweight primitives and the UMAPs that could ensure the security of the systems optimally.
Tewari and Gupta protocol
To provide robust authentication solution to IoT node authentication problem, Tewari and Gupta came up with a
The protocol assumes that the channel between the R and the T is open for A. Each T stores an L bit identification number (ID) (L can be 32, 64 and 96 bits depending on the size of identification system) and two latest values of dynamic variables, which are, pseudonym and key
Memory architecture of Tewari and Gupta protocol.
The detail explanation regarding execution of the protocol is described as follows:
The R transmits
The values received by the R are searched in the memory. The outcome of the search can be divided into two categories. CASE I: The T and the R are in complete synchronization and the received pair of pseudonyms is present in reader’s memory. In this case, the R will replace value of old pseudonym with latest index pseudonym present in reader’s memory
Case II: The tag’s
Once the tag is identified, the authentication at both ends is performed on the basis of latest dynamic variable. After successful tag identification, the R generates two L bit random numbers m and n. The R also calculates and transmits message
The message P and Q are used for extraction of random numbers m and n, respectively. Message R is used for the R authentication. For reader verification, the T calculates local value of R and compares it with the received value. The R is successfully authenticated if both the values match.
In this step, the T calculates and transmits message S. After transmitting tag authentication challenge message S, the dynamic memory at tag’s side is updated using equations (9)–(12)
A variant of the protocol uses another expression of the message S which is defined as follows
The R calculates the response of the T authentication challenge
The block diagram for representation of Tewari and Gupta protocol is presented in Figure 1.

Block diagram of Tewari and Gupta protocol.
Security analysis of Tewari and Gupta protocol
The Tewari and Gupta protocol
6
is a
Desynchronization attack
In the desynchronization attack model, the A disconnects an authentic T from the RFID system. The objective of this cryptanalysis model is to tamper the dynamic memory of the R and as a result, the protocol terminates at the identification stage.
Two design properties of the Tewari and Gupta protocol form the basis of successful desynchronization attack on the T. These properties are described as follows:
The tag’s static identification number (
The R overwrites the dynamic memory associated with the T without formal verification of the tag’s identity.
The above-mentioned attributes of the protocol lead to the desynchronization attack. The description of proposed attack model is described as follows.
As discussed in section “Tewari and Gupta protocol” (step b), if the tag and the reader’s index pseudonyms are not in complete synchronization, the R updates its dynamic memory with the latest value of
Session 1: In the first session, the A eavesdrop the response of the reader’s
Session 2: In this session, the A impersonates as an authentic T and responds to the reader’s Hello message with the string
At the end of this session, the identity pseudonyms on reader’s side assume an invalid value, that is,
Memory status of tag–reader pair during desynchronization attack.
Probabilistic full disclosure attack
We have used Hernandez-Castro et al. 15 lemma in order to simplify the MR function. Our proposed probabilistic attack model is active in nature since we need to block one authentication message and it requires only one authentication session to retrieve all of the secrets. The attack executes as follows:
Step 1: After receiving the
Step 2: Upon receiving of
The intercepted messages are
Since the authors have used the MR functions, and according to lemma,
15
equation (16) can be simplified as follows with
Further simplification of equation (17) will result in
The success rate of equation (19) is
Step 3: Upon successful authentication, the T calculates and transmits message S (equation (8a)) toward legitimate reader; however, the A first intercepts this message and then blocks this message from reaching at the reader’s side so it may not update its pseudonyms. The A performs following computations in order to retrieve the concealed secrets.
The A uses the same lemma 15 to simplify message S as well and after simplification, the message S calculated will become
Now, take
Since all of the variables in equation (23) are publicly known (
Since
The success rate of the proposed attack model is
Guess and determine attack
This attack model exploits the poor composition of the protocol messages design and shows that the plain use of double rotation function can make the protocol a soft target for the adversaries. The guess and determine attack is a passive model with the success probability of
Take
All of the variables in equation (27) are public, except
In order to compute these secrets, the A applies the guess and determines model in following manner: A generates all the possible combinations (strings of L bit) of
Use all conjecture sets of m to calculate conjecture n sets
All sets of conjecture n will have the error on the same position as that of m.
Now, shortlist only those combinations of conjecture secrets
Since all of the variables
Lemma 1
If
Now, let us apply Lemma 1 on equation (16) and if
Similarly, after validating Take Taking
Figure 2 shows the working of the attack model with 8-bit variable length. Although the proposed model uses the brute force technique but the possible combinations of K and m are shortlisted with the success probability of

Example of guess and determine attack model.
Comparison
In this section, we have compared our cryptanalysis model with existing attacks on the said protocol. As of today, two passive full disclosure attacks were reported in Safkhani and Bagheri
24
and Wang et al.
25
Unlike the existing attacks, our proposed cryptanalysis model exploits the structural weakness of MR primitive; therefore, our cryptanalysis model can be applied to a wide range of protocols that use
Comparison of full disclosure attack models.
Conclusion
Recently, a new UMAP has been proposed by Tewari and Gupta
6
and they have used only
Footnotes
Handling Editor: Paolo Bellavista
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Bahria University, Pakistan provided financial support for publication of this article.
