RFID Security - The Book

Filed in archive Privacy and Security on June 16, 2006

Recently, in all my spare time (ha!), I contributed a chapter to a new book entitled "RFID Security." The main author of the book is Frank Thornton (a really nice guy), with contributions from various others.

I wrote one of the general overview chapters, about the current state of RFID in business today. The chapter covers the History of Rfid, how it came to be used in business, where it has evolved to today, and today's key issues impacting wider RFID usage. The state of security and privacy issues is an area discussed.

When I wrote the chapter I was asked to describe the state of the industry for a middle manager or technical manager or professional, who is not necessarily an expert in RFID but needs to read a primer on RFID and get up to speed quickly in order to secure RFID networks and otherwise deploy and maintain RFID implementations securely. So that is how my chapter is approached.

Here is the description of the book:

"RFID Security reveals the motives of RFID hackers and then explains how to protect systems. Coverage includes how to prevent attackers from exploiting security breaches for monetary gain (hacking a store's RFID system would allow a hacker to lower the pricing on any product); how to protect the supply chain (malicious/mischievous hackers can delete/alter/modify all identifying information for an entire shipment of products); and how to protect personal privacy (privacy advocates fear that RFID tags embedded in products, which continue to transmit information after leaving a store, will be used to track consumer habits)."

The book was just recently published by Syngress Publishing. Find out more and buy the book here. You get a downloadable PDF version, as well as a hard copy of the book, if you buy at the Syngress Publishing website. (FYI, I was paid a flat fee for writing my chapter, so I receive no financial gain whether you buy the book or not -- but I urge you to buy it.)