An Annotated Taxonomy of Tag and Seal Vulnerabilities

Tags and tamper-indicating seals have important applications for nuclear materials management. Seals are used to detect tampering or unauthorized access, while tags uniquely identify an object or container. Despite the importance of tags and seals, their vulnerabilities have received only limited formal study. Little exists in the way of theoretical guidelines for even discussing, much less characterizing or prioritizing, tag and seal weaknesses. In this paper, we define and discuss 105 different generic attacks on seals and 91 on tags. We comment on these vulnerabilities based on our experience with tags and seals, and with vulnerability assessments. The taxonomy proposed here can be used to clarify vulnerability discussions, to provide a more solid theoretical basis for tag/seal study and development, and to generate a security survey checklist for users of tags and seals.