Abstract: Addressing the privacy and security issues in RFID systems, an ultra-lightweight RFID authentication protocol based on a novel confusion operation is proposed. This protocol achieves low complexity and high security by utilizing simple bitwise XOR, circular left rotation, and a newly proposed ultra-lightweight grouping cyclic operation. Additionally, since the messages during the protocol interaction are generated based on random numbers, attackers cannot exhaustively crack the messages. Analysis and verification results show that the protocol can effectively resist common types of network attacks and has advantages in terms of computation and storage costs.

Key words: RFID authentication protocol, confusion operation, grouping cyclic operations, formal verification