Mobile phones and other portable devices are widely used for communication and a variety of other uses. Near field communication (NFC) enables two electronic devices (including mobile phones) to establish radio communication by bringing them close enough, namely touching each other or within about ten centimeters (cm). NFC form factors such as tags have many applications, including data storage, contactless transactions, and data exchange. NFC standards are based on existing radio frequency identification (RFID) standards. This book focuses on security issues in mobile NFC devices. It is a revised version of the author’s PhD thesis, submitted to Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, in 2013. The book provides an appraisal of the current state of NFC security. It is part of Springer’s “T-Labs Series in Telecommunication Services.”

The book has eight chapters. The first two chapters provide an introduction to NFC and its usage in smartphones. The third chapter mentions some use cases that are helpful for the evaluation of NFC security. The fourth chapter looks at related work, such as attacks on contactless smart cards and flaws in existing mobile wallet implementations. This chapter mentions some security and privacy issues of NFC devices. The fifth chapter concentrates on digital signatures, establishing trust, and potential solutions to the noticed weaknesses. The sixth chapter studies card emulation and lists attack scenarios such as denial-of-service attacks and software-based relay attacks. The seventh chapter discusses software-based relay attacks on existent applications such as Google Wallet. The eighth and last chapter summarizes the main results of the thesis and possible directions for future research. The book has two appendices: one on Google’s secure element application programming interface (API) and another containing modifications to that API.

This well-written book is an enhanced version of the author’s PhD thesis. NFC security is a hot topic these days. There is considerable debate about the pros and cons of NFC, especially with regard to its security. The author and the publisher have done a good job by bringing out a timely book that is accessible to the public. Very few books discuss NFC security. Hence, this book will be useful for offering an introduction to the security issues related to NFC. The style of writing is good, although the book is quite concise. The author could have gone into more depth and compared the security of NFC with that of Bluetooth and RFID. I recommend this book for security experts, researchers, practitioners, and anyone curious about NFC security.