Near Field Communication or NFC,a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre (around 4 inches) distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard (contactless card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC device can communicate with both existing ISO/IEC 14443 smartcards and readers, as well as with other NFC devices, is thereby compatible with existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation and payment. NFC is primarily aimed at usage in mobile phones.
Near Field Communication (NFC)
[
attachment=23629]
Introduction
NFC stands for Near Field Communication. The specification details of NFC can be found in ISO 18092 [1]. The main characteristic of NFC is that it is a wireless communication interface with a working distance limited to about 10 cm. The interface can operate in several modes. The modes are distinguished whether a device creates its own RF field or whether a device retrieves the power from the RF field generated by another device. If the device generates its own field it is called an active device, otherwise it is called a passive device. Active devices usually have a power supply, passive devices usually don't (e.g. contactless Smart Card). When two devices communicate three different configurations are possible.
Applications
It is impossible to give a complete picture of NFC applications as NFC is just an interface. The following sub sections introduce three example applications. These shall be viewed as typical use cases and where chosen to motivate the list of possible threats given in the next section.
Contactless Token
This covers all applications, which use NFC to retrieve some data from a passive token. The passive token could be a contactless Smart Card, an RFID label, or a key fob. Also, the token could be physically included in a device without any electric connections to that device.
Ticketing / Micro Payment
in this example application, the NFC interface is used to transfer some valuable information. The ticket or the micro payment data is stored in a secure device. This could be a contactless Smart Card, but could as well be a mobile phone. When the user wants to perform a payment or use the stored ticket, the user presents the device to a reader, which checks the received information and processes the payment or accepts/rejects the ticket.
Device Pairing
In this application the two devices communicating would belong to the same group of devices. An example could be a laptop and a digital camera. The user wants to establish a Bluetooth connection between the two devices to exchange image data. The Bluetooth link is established by bringing the two devices close together and running a given protocol over NFC between the two devices. This makes it obvious for the user which two devices get actually linked and takes away the burden of navigating through menus and selecting the right devices from lists of possible communication partners.