Understanding and Securing NFC/RFID

NFC and RFID both works on wireless technology and both needed tags and reader as a component to work. NFC is newer than RFID but to work on NFC we needed high frequency of RFID. Let us explore both in depth.

· Radio Frequency ID /RFID:

As name indicates “Radio Frequency ID”, this technology uses radio waves to identify Objects. It has 2 main components :

I. Tags: That have encoded information. Tags can be active or passive. These tags have antenna or small chip and they comes in different sizes or shapes.

i. Active tags needs batteries.

ii. Passive tags powered by readers and need batteries for it.

II. Readers: Those devices transmit electromagnetic waves and reads information from the tags. Reader can be portable like mobile phone or non-portable like built into cabinet, room.

Objects are devices that used to read information from wireless devices (RFID or NFC tags) and for that device do not need any close contact or physical touch. Now days we are using RFID everywhere such as in Cars, Employee identification cards or any security cards, checking patients or equipment tracking. It have two types:

i. Vicinity RFID: In this document can be read from 20–30 feet distance.