The military and defense industry was arguably the very first to use RFID technology. It is only natural that they continue to leverage and harvest process automation, automatic identification and, to a lesser degree, data storage capabilities that RFID offers. One of the most prominent applications for military RFID is container tracking. During the first Gulf War, thousands of twenty-foot equivalent (TEU’s) sea containers littered the desert floor as the US military moved into Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.  Often, the paper trail for those TEU’s was lost which meant they had to be manually inventoried on the ground. The addition of data-rich RFID tags allowed for the contents of each container to be listed on the tag, which were securely attached to the TEU's. Ensuring that mission critical supplies and equipment are in place is crucial to the success of the war fighter. Prior to the use of RFID in the supply chain, field personnel would submit requisitions for supplies and those orders would be fulfilled over time and there was a culture of mistrust that the equipment would come at all. If commanders felt they would not receive the equipment in time for a mission, they would reorder, and then reorder, and so on. Then one day four orders would arrive when only one was needed.

 

More recently, as RFID applications in Defense supply chain has gained maturity, the use of RFID for reusable equipment management, visibility and security is starting to grow. Some have estimated that within five years the average American warfighter will carry at least 5 pieces of equipment onto the battlefield that have RFID tags inside. Weapons, night vision goggles, and other small but high valued assets will likely be tagged so that they can be tracked as inventory. Other prominent applications include military healthcare, asset management and personal safety

 

An attacker, most likely a nation state, can easily identify military installations, supply shipments and personnel by continuously reading and tracking RFID tags. This is true for tags that the warfighter carries on her and also of course for any type of provisions that are shipped to the front lines. Oftentimes these last mile shipments are delivered by parachute which makes it very easy to retrieve for enemies. It is important to note that no enemy would be compelled to adhere to standard radiation regulations which necessarily means that RFID tags can be read much further away than they are now.

 

Revere Security's Hummingbird HB-2 cryptographic suite offers protection for active and passive RFID tags: