An improved RFID tag ownership transfer scheme

An RFID tag ownership transfer scheme named ROTIV is analyzed in this paper. ROTIV consists of three sub-protocols: mutual authentication sub-protocol, issuer verification sub-protocol and ownership transfer sub-protocol, and the designers claim that it has the merits of constant-time authentication of a tag to a reader, tag privacy-preserved, and issuer verification. Especially, the formal proof is given to ensure the security of the scheme. However, our analysis demonstrates that this scheme is vulnerable to the attack of privacy tracing, and its application scenario is constrained by the premise that the channel between the owner and the verifier, or the channel between the current owner and the potential successive owner are secure. In order to resist the privacy infringement, we improved this scheme using the owner's private key to encrypt their tag's identity. In addition, we relax the security requirement restrictions on communication channels in order to enhance the practical applicability of the scheme.