RFID-Based Authentication Middleware for Mobile Devices

Ever-growing popularity of mobile devices, such as smart phones and netbooks, coupled with anytime and anyplace availability of high-speed network access is changing the ways how we compute and communicate. Mobile devices play an increasingly important role in our lives and tend to become representations of our digital selves when we trust these devices with sensitive information. Consequently, the problem of securing mobile devices against unauthorized access has never been more important. We present an RFID-based Authentication Middleware (RFID-AM) that combines point of entry and continuous authentication with transparent on-demand encryption of user files. This paper details the architecture of RFID-AM, discusses its fully functional prototype, and presents experimental results demonstrating its performance in various conditions. This paper also surveys different methods and technologies that have been proposed and implemented on mobile devices.