METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROTECTING RFID TAGS FROM POWER ANALYSIS

摘要

RFID tags were believed to be immune to power analysis since they have no direct connection to an external power supply. However, recent research has shown that they s are vulnerable to such attacks, since it is possible to measure their power consumption remotely via a completely passive attack. The method and apparatus of the invention protects RFID tags against simple and differential power attacks. The invention is particularly useful regarding inventory control systems or secure documents such as epassports. The basic technique is to use two capacitors embedded in the RFID tag in lo such a way that at any given time one of them is storing energy that is being generated by the charge pump of the tag that sucks energy from the electromagnetic or magnetic field of a tag reader, and the other one is discharging and powering the computational element of the tag chip.