nfc-relay(1)

📦 version 1.8.0, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, debian bookworm, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 nfc-relay — bestie's guide to the relay attack tool 💖

okay so real talk, this is nfc-relay from the libnfc'examples crew, and it's a whole relay attack command line tool based on libnfc. she's niche, she's iconic, and she does exactly one thing. let's get into it ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

nfc-relay

that's it. no flags, no args, no nothing. she just goes 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so nfc-relay is a lil utility that demonstrates a relay attack. not me casually describing a whole attack like it's a study group session 😭

here's the tea, and you're gonna need two NFC devices for this, no cap:

  • one device, configured as the target, is out here emulating an ISO/IEC 14443 type A tag 🎀
  • the second device, configured as the initiator, is doing its little reader act 📖

so the setup is: you put the genuine tag on the second device (the initiator), and you place the tag emulator (that's the target) close to the original reader. and then… all communication is now relayed and shown on the screen in real-time. it's giving magic trick, it's giving main character energy, honestly obsessed ✨

lowkey important: this tool has the same issues regarding timing as nfc-emulate-uid has. that's not me being dramatic, that's just true. so the advice is to try it against something like an OmniKey CardMan 5321 reader. iykyk 💫

💀 BUGS 💀

found a bug? spill it on the libnfc issue tracker, bestie:

https://github.com/nfc-tools/libnfc/issues

they wanna know. fr fr 🫶

👑 LICENCE 👑

libnfc is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), version 3.

libnfc-utils and libnfc-examples are covered by the the BSD 2-Clause license.

(yes, the original says "the the", and honestly? we respect the typo. periodt 💅)

⭐ AUTHORS ⭐

Roel Verdult <roel@libnfc.org> — the legend herself 🧚

this manual page was written by Romuald Conty <romuald@libnfc.org>. it is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL (version 2 or later).

and that's the whole page, bestie!! brought to you by libnfc, dated June 26, 2009 — a vintage queen who has been slaying since forever 🌈💖 mwah, go relay something (responsibly, ethically, legally, pls 🙈).

📦 where this page comes from