Survey of distance bounding protocols and threats

Abstract

NFC and RFID are technologies that are more and more present in our life. These technologies allow a tag to communicate without contact with a reader. In wireless communication an intruder can always listen and forward a signal, so he can mount a so-called worm hole attack. In the last decades, several Distance Bounding (DB) protocols have been introduced to avoid such attacks. In this context, there exist several threat models: Terrorist Fraud, Mafia Fraud, Distance Fraud etc. We first show the links between the existing threat models. Then we list more than forty DB protocols and give the bounds of the best known attacks for different threat models. In some cases, we explain how we are able to improve existing attacks. Then, we present some advices to the designers of the DB protocols and to the intruders to mount some attacks.