Chapter List

Introduction

While sitting at your desk one morning,your boss walks in and announces that the company is switching to a new Radio FrequencyIdentification (RFID) setup for tracking products, which will add new equipment to the network andmake it more secure. Your boss expects you to evaluate the new RFID equipment and devise anappropriate security plan.

The first thing you need to do is determine your security needs. You may be a position toinfluence the evaluations and purchasing of RFID applications and equipment; however, more thanlikely, you will be given a fixed set of parameters for applications and equipment.

In either case, the first thing you need to do is assess the vulnerabilities of the proposedRFID system. After you have assessed the RFID system it in detail, you can devise plans on how tomanage system security.

Risk and Vulnerability Assessment

The assessment of risks and vulnerabilities go hand in hand. You have to make sure theobvious things are covered.

To begin evaluating your system, you need to ask questions regarding the assessment andtolerance of the risks: what types of information are you talking about at any given point in thesystem and what form is it in? How much of that information can potentially be lost? Will it belost through the radio portion of the system, someplace in the middleware, or at the backend? Oncethese risks...