98 Int. J. Security and Networks, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2018 Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A promising security protocol for protecting near field communication devices from networking attacks Abu Asaduzzaman*, Shanta Mazumder and Sergio Salinas Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, 67260, USA Email: Abu.Asaduzzaman@wichita.edu Email: sxmazumder@wichita.edu Email: Sergio.SalinasMonroy@wichita.edu *Corresponding author Abstract: Near field communication (NFC) is vulnerable to numerous networking attacks such as tag manipulation. In this work, a security protocol for the NFC chip is introduced to protect the NFC devices and associated data from several attacks. In addition, the NFC data exchange format (NDEF) message is modified with a certificate record and the alert mechanism is improved to enhance security. The modified secure protocol in the NFC system checks the authenticity of the incoming NDEF messages sender (by checking the signature record) and validity of the message/data (by checking the certificate), then if appropriate, stores the incoming NDEF messages in the device’s memory for further processing. Matrix laboratory (MATLAB) simulation results suggest that the proposed protocol offers better security by detecting certificate modification, message modification, etc. The proposed secure technique for NFC can be extended to enhance security in mobile IoT devices. Keywords: security-aware architecture; NFC architecture; near field communication; systems security; secure protocol. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Asaduzzaman, A., Mazumder, S. and Salinas, S. (2018) ‘A promising security protocol for protecting near field communication devices from networking attacks’, Int. J. Security and Networks, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp.98–107. Biographical notes: Abu Asaduzzaman received his PhD and MS degrees, both in Computer Engineering, from Florida Atlantic University, USA. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at Wichita State University. His research interests include computer architecture, embedded systems, high-performance computing, and performance evaluation. Shanta Mazumder received her MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Wichita State University, USA. Her research interests include consumer electronics, internet of things, and systems security. Sergio Salinas received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Mississippi State University, USA. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Privacy and Security at Wichita State University, USA. His research interests include privacy and security, cyber-physical systems (e.g., smart grids), and big data computing. This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘An auspicious secure processing technique for near field communication systems’ presented at IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), New York City, USA, 20–22 October, 2016. 1 Introduction According to recent studies, there will be 20 to 30 billion devices on IoT by 2020 (ABI, 2013). According to another market research, it is expected that there will be 1.9 billion NFC-enabled phones by 2018 (Boden, 2014). The NFC systems are very convenient and easy to use. Users do not need any knowledge about the underlying technology of NFC as the communication starts automatically by simply bringing two devices closer (within 5–10 cm, at 13.56 MHz and 106, 212, 424, or 848 Kbits per second).