Tweet me!Security Solutions on RFID Tags to Benefit Pharmaceutical and Other Industries
SecureRF Corporation announced that they have been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a secure RFID tag for the $231 Billion U.S. Pharmaceutical supply chain. SecureRF, developer of the world’s first linear-based security methods, will initially receive $500,000 to develop and demonstrate a secure passive RFID tag that will address the $40 Billion in annual counterfeiting and divergence now occurring in the pharmaceutical supply chain worldwide. The company is partnering with the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs, Inc. (NCPDP) and a major US pharmaceutical distributor in their development effort.
“The NSF is a great partner and we are very excited to have their support in this project.” said Louis Parks, SecureRF’s CEO. “The development of a secure passive RFID tag will provide the pharmaceutical industry, which handles nearly four billion prescriptions in the U.S. annually, with onboard authentication and data protection features to address the growing number of counterfeit and illicit drug cases and help ensure the safety and integrity of their products.”
In this Phase II project, SecureRF will focus on developing an RFID system which will meet the pharmaceutical industry’s need for confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authentication. The resulting UHF passive RFID tag will comply with EPCglobal, Class 1, Generation 2 UHF (Gen 2) protocols, have ultra low power requirements and yet allow secure cryptography to run on the chip itself, an industry innovation. Methods developed in this project will also be applicable to passive HF RFID tags too. Potential customers include pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and pharmacies that need to ensure patient safety and privacy along with drug integrity.
In Phase I of this project, which was completed in 2008, SecureRF proved the feasibility of using their patent-pending Algebraic Eraser™ security protocol, the world’s first linear-based cryptographic method on a passive Gen2 tag enabling an RFID reader to securely authenticate the tags. They also proved that the tag can create a shared secret with the reader and support various security protocols including the onboard encryption of data.
Today’s RFID tags and other embedded, resource-constrained or performance-sensitive devices cannot protect users from unauthorized reading, copying, or tracking due to the lack of on-board computing resources. The security methods developed in this project are also applicable to high value asset tracking, contactless payment systems, wireless sensor networks, Smart Grid microcontrollers, and Defense/Homeland Security border security systems. Last year, SecureRF also received an SBIR grant from the US Air Force to develop a secure global active RFID solution for use by both land-based and satellite systems.
SecureRF’s team of world-leading mathematician/cryptographers have developed a cryptographic protocol, known as the Algebraic Eraser™, which is thousands of times smaller and faster than any currently available security methods and can provide both asymmetric and symmetric solutions. The SBIR project is under the direction of SecureRF’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Iris L. Anshel. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Number 0924363.
Related Links:
