Pitfalls in Ultralightweight Authentication Protocol Designs

Abstract

This article introduces prudent engineering practices and offers recommendations to follow, together with typical mistakes to avoid, when designing new ultralightweight authentication protocols. This work can help, as a sanity check, designers of RFID, NFC, and sensor networks based security solutions to improve the security, reliability, and longevity of ultralightweight authentication protocol designs. Additionally, it aims to help reviewers to quickly distinguish what is really new and worthy in a research area that has been flooded lately with proposals of dubious quality.