A Context Aware Security Model for Preventing Relay Attacks in NFC Enabled Mobile Devices

Date

2025-06-29

Author

Cavdar, Davut
Tomur, Emrah
Betin Can, Aysu

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Near Field Communication (NFC) is widely used in mobile applications, yet relay attacks remain a significant security risk, especially in access control systems. Existing countermeasures, such as distance bounding, ambient sensing, and RF fingerprinting, either lack adaptability or fail to provide comprehensive protection at the application layer. In this study, we propose M-CARBAC, a context-aware access control model designed to prevent relay attacks in NFC-enabled mobile devices. Unlike prior solutions, M-CARBAC integrates dynamic contextual verification, formal security definitions, and adaptive access control policies, ensuring that captured credentials remain invalid if relayed. A formal coverage analysis confirms that the model correctly evaluates all possible access requests. Performance tests conducted on an NFC-based access control testbed demonstrate that M-CARBAC effectively mitigates relay attacks while maintaining a reasonable computational overhead. Compared to existing solutions, our model offers a more robust and scalable approach for securing NFC transactions. These findings highlight M-CARBAC's potential for enhancing the security of mobile-based access control systems against evolving threats.

Subject Keywords

access control, authentication, context aware, mobile device, near field communication (NFC)

URI

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=105010531121&origin=inward
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115226

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Graduate School of Informatics, Article