OUR MISSION

RFID CUSP is a partnership between academic and industrial scientists specializing in RFID security and privacy. Our mission is to make RFID safe for consumers by conducting open research and educating the next generation work force that will develop, deploy and maintain secure RFID infrastructures.

Planning ahead: Good security is built in, not bolted on. The Internet has taught a key lesson: It is less costly to anticipate threats and to secure systems from the start than to patch after the fact.

Open design: Public scrutiny usually breeds stronger systems than private finger-crossing. Openness has long been a cardinal rule of cryptography and a pillar of secure system design. Similarly, responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities holds the technology industry to high standards and brings vital education to the community.

Thinking holistically: Well conceived goals beget well conceived solutions. Thorough understanding of the uses and abuses of a system is the first step toward economical and effective security.

Cheap security from SRAM
March 2009:
IEEE Spectrum interviews Prof. Wayne Burleson and Dan Holcomb on using the contents of uninitialized SRAM to generate randomness and an identifying fingerprint on future RFID tags.

NSF grant to improve RFID security
October 30, 2008:
CUSP researchers Prof. Wayne Burleson and Dr. Ari Juels are collaborating with Prof. Dennis Goeckel and Prof. Robert Jackson of the UMass Wireless Center on a new project
entitled "Ultra Wideband Radio for Low-Power Security." The project was recently awarded a $200,000 grant from the NSF Cyber Trust program.

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Feb 2008:
Dr. Ari Juels explains overlooked nuances of security and privacy for the upcoming U.S. Passport card. Read more >

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