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Potential Misuse of NFC Enabled Mobile Phoneswith Embedded Security Elements as Contactless

Attack Platforms, RISC (ICITST) 2009.

Lishoy Francis, Gerhard Hancke, Keith Mayes and KonstantinosMarkantonakis

The Information Security Group Smart Card Centre,Information Security Group,

Royal Holloway University of London,Egham TW20 0EX, Surrey, United Kingdom.

10 November 2009 09:00

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..

Part I: Overview of NFC Enabled Mobile Phones.

Part II: Proposed Security Attacks.

Part III: Proposed Security Countermeasures.

Part IV: Conclusions.

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Part I

Part I

Overview of NFC Enabled Mobile Phones

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Part I

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Overview of NFC Enabled Mobile Phones

Objective:To investigate the potential misuse of NFC (Near Field Communications)enabled mobile phones with embedded Security Element (SE).

NFC is a short range and standardised (ISO 18092) wirelesscommunications technology (adds contactless functionality to mobile

devices, e.g. mobile phones and PDAs). NFC enabled mobile phone can act both as a contactless card and

a contactless reader (supports ISO 14443, ISO 15693, FeliCa andMifare Standard).

NFC finds applications in ticketing, banking, access control, etc and

is tipped to be the next click. Three architectures currently exist, SE as embedded hardware

module; SE functionality integrated into the Subscriber IdentityApplication module such as (U)SIM; SE as removable memorycomponent (Secure MMC, Secure SD).

P I

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Part I

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A functional view of the NFC enabled Mobile Phoneshowing relevant APIs and operational modes

Part I

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Part I

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Security of NFC

Secure Element (SE): controls the NFC based transactions,

establishes the trust between serviceprovider and the mobile phone.

designed to provide a secure platform for

containing sensitive applications and keymaterial.

The SE supports Java Card 2.2.1 (JavaCard Open Platform), Global Platform2.1.1 & Mifare Standard emulation.

The mobile phone vendor allows SEunlocking, which sets theauthentication keyset to a known publicvalue.

Part I

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Part I

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Security of NFC

Related Contactless Security Attacks: Contactless token skimmers and emulators currently exist, but a

NFC phone platform offers distinct advantages in that it is a small,mobile device and more importantly that is has an acceptable formfactor, i.e. it does not physically look like a skimmer or an emulator.

Heydt-Benjamin et.al. 2007 (skimming, replay and relaying onpayment systems).

E-passport clones (Steve Boggan article in Times, August, 2008).

Designs for hardware emulators for ISO 14443 tokens (Carluccioet.al., R. Verdult, 2006); & hardware skimmers, available for

purchase (OpenPCD.org; HF RFID Demo Tag, IAIK, Graz).

We demonstrate how a NFC mobile phone can be configured as acontactless reader which may be used as a contactless skimmingtool, and how the attacker can use the gathered information tocreate a clone by emulating a token.

Part I

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Part I

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NFC Enabled Mobile Phone as a Contactless Card & as aContactless Reader

NFC Enabled Mobile Phone as a Contactless Card:

The SE supports Java Card 2.2.1 (Java Card Open Platform),Global Platform 2.1.1 & Mifare Standard emulation.

The mobile phone vendor allows SE unlocking, which sets theauthentication keyset to a known public value.

SE communicates with the NFC controller, the external readerdevice and the applications installed on the mobile phone throughwell defined, and standardised, interfaces.

NFC Enabled Mobile Phone as a Contactless Reader:

Nokia 6131 supports S40 platform, providing J2ME layer for MIDP(Mobile Information Device Profile) 2.0 applications (MIDlets). Contactless reader mode uses JSR 257 API to communicate with

any external SE and if needed uses SATSA (JSR 177) API tocommunicate with the internal SE.

JSR 257 API Extensions allow NFC enabled mobile devices tocommunicate in P2P mode.

Part II

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Part II

Part II

Proposed Security Attacks

Part II

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Proposed Security Attacks

NFC Enabled Mobile Phone as an Attack Platform

Practical Proof of Concept for the Proposed Attacks:

Transaction Data Capture & Analysis.

Captured RF (Radio Frequency) communication between acontactless card and a legacy contactless reader in our test system.

The test system is based on a static authentication system.

Developing the Clone. By default, the SE on 6131 is locked with the Issuer keyset. Unlockable, the unlocking process sets the authentication keyset to a

known public values (keyset-42). Java Card Applets which emulated the test application were loaded

and installed on the unlocked SE. Developing the Mobile Pick Pocketing Tool.

A MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile) 2.0 application(MIDlet) running on the mobile phone which reads (skims) thecontactless card.

No code signing was required to use the contactless APIs.

Part II

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Proposed Security Attacks

NFC Enabled Mobile Phone as an Attack Platform

a) Custom-built Sniffer & CardEmulator.

b) Skimming & Cloning using NFCMobile Phone.

Part III

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Part III

Proposed Security Countermeasures

Part III

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Proposed Security Countermeasures

Security Countermeasures

Timing, RF Shielding may not work.

Control measures on the NFC Secure Element (SE).

Making code signing mandatory for NFC communications API.

Securing the NFC Secure Element activity.

Cryptographically linking the application to Unique Identifiers.

Application Protocol with strong cryptography (for e.g. dynamic

authentication).

Part IV

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Part IV

Conclusions

Part IV

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Conclusions

Conclusions

NFC enabled Mobile Phones are found to be easily configured asCloning, Skimming Platforms.

Legitimate form-factor of mobile phone arouse less suspicion in thepublic.

Easily and freely available development tools.

More security controls needed on the Secure Element.

If not secured, the Secure Element (SE) embedded in certain NFCmobile phones could become a platform for malicious software.

In conclusion, our findings indicate that the embedded SE with theexisting security controls and the available contactless APIs could beexploited to configure the mobile phone as a contactless attackplatform.

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