A Two-Factor and Reader-Undedicated Authentication Scheme with Passive RFID Tags in WLAN

WLAN (wireless local area network) becomes universal because network technology attains to maturity. To prevent unprivileged access to network resources, authentication is necessary. Conventional authentication mechanisms adopt only users´ identities and passwords, and they are regarded as single-factor ones. To enhance security with inexpensive cost, Guo et al. proposed an authentication scheme with passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags in WLAN in 2011. Guo et al. claimed that there might be many readers in their scheme. However, a registered user must be authenticated with a dedicated reader which the user is registered with. This property makes Guo et al.´s scheme impractical and users´ mobility constrained. Moreover, locations in a tag to store data are not encrypted such that illegal readers may easily read out desired data. To ensure practicability with low costs, this paper proposes an RFID authentication scheme with undedicated readers in WLAN. The proposed scheme can further protect data stored in a tag from being retrieved by illegal readers to enhance security.