Wisecr: Secure Simultaneous Code Dissemination to Many Batteryless Computational RFID Devices

Yang Su, Michael Chesser, Yansong Gao, Alanson P. Sample, Damith C. Ranasinghe

Abstract: Emerging ultra-low-power <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">tiny scale</i> computing devices run on harvested energy, are intermittently powered, have limited computational capability, and perform sensing and actuation functions under the control of a dedicated firmware operating without the supervisory control of an operating system. Wirelessly updating or patching firmware of such devices is inevitable. We consider the challenging problem of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">simultaneous</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">secure</i> firmware updates or patching for a typical class of such devices—Computational Radio Frequency Identification (CRFID) devices. We propose <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Wisecr</i> , the first secure and simultaneous wireless code dissemination mechanism to multiple devices that prevents <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">malicious code injection attacks</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">intellectual property (IP) theft</i> , whilst enabling <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">remote attestation of code installation</i> . Importantly, <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Wisecr</i> is engineered to comply with existing ISO compliant communication protocol standards employed by CRFID devices and systems. We comprehensively evaluate <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Wisecr</i> 's overhead, demonstrate its implementation over standards compliant protocols, analyze its security, implement an end-to-end realization with popular CRFID devices and open-source the complete software package on GitHub.