teaser
A US firm has unveiled a new generation of RFID devices which it claims will provide pharmaceutical products with even greater protection from counterfeiters.
Microchip giant Atmel said its CryptoRF system is the world’s first 13.56MHz RFID with a 64-bit embedded cryptographic engine which makes it impossible or fraudsters to pirate medications.
One of the most reliable ways to protect against fake drugs is to lock the product’s authenticity in a hardware device.
To that end, the system creates unique “signatures” based on information that is never transmitted or allowed to be accessed in any way, ensuring that all products with the tag can be easily verified.
Counterfeiting is currently a massive worldwide problem, and fake goods worth an estimated $600bn have been seized so far this year.
Conventional RFID tags can be copied using a low-cost tag reader, and then the information is used to create copies.
But the firm said CryptoRF uses a 64-bit embedded hardware cryptographic engine to create keys which match up perfectly and cannot be replicated.
A complete history of a product’s ownership, distribution, and disposition can also be contained on a single device, and different “zones” can be enacted to allow different levels of read and write access, including read and write, read-only, one-time-programmable or requires authentication.
Copyright © PA Business 2007
