URAP Under Desynchronization Attack: Analysis and a Lightweight Defense Strategy

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are widely deployed in access control, inventory tracking, and track-and-trace applications due to their low cost and ease of integration. Ultra-lightweight authentication protocols are typically used to ensure the security and privacy of the communication channel between the tag and reader pair. This paper presents the security analysis of a recent protocol, i.e, Ultra-lightweight RFID Authentication Protocol (URAP). The proposed work highlights a critical vulnerability in the architecture and working of the URAP protocol. To mitigate the threat, we propose a lightweight enhancement that introduces timestamp validation into the authentication process, improving resilience against denial-ofservice scenarios without compromising protocol efficiency.