Bluetooth is everywhere, and so are its security flaws. But how great is the risk? How concerned should you be about Bluejacking, Bluesnarfing, or Bluebugging? Here’s what you need to know to protect your devices.
Bluetooth Vulnerabilities Abound
At first glance, it might seem like it’s pretty risky to use Bluetooth. At the recent DEF CON 27 security conference, attendees were advised to disable Bluetooth on their devices while they were there. Of course, it makes sense you’d want to be more careful with your device security if you’re surrounded by thousands of hackers in a fairly small venue.
Even if you’re not attending a hackers’ conference, there are valid causes for concern—just read the news. A vulnerability in the Bluetooth specification was recently uncovered. It allows hackers to access your Bluetooth device via a technique called Key Negotiation of Bluetooth (KNOB). To do this, a nearby hacker forces your device to use weaker encryption when it connects, making it easier for him to crack it.
Sound complicated? It kind of is. For the KNOB exploit to work, the hacker has to be physically close to you when you connect your two Bluetooth devices. And he only has a short window of time to intercept the handshake and force a different encryption method. The hacker then has to brute force the password—however, that’s probably pretty easy because the new encryption key can be as short as one bit in length.
Consider also the vulnerability uncovered by researchers at Boston University. Connected Bluetooth devices, like earbuds and speakers, broadcast their identity in a surprisingly detectable way. If you use such a device, you can be tracked as long as it’s on.
Both of these vulnerabilities popped up in the last month, and you only have to scroll back a year to find another. In short, if a hacker is nearby and sends an invalid public key to your Bluetooth device, it’s highly probable she can determine your current session key. Once that’s done, the hacker can intercept and decrypt all data that passes between the Bluetooth devices easily. Even worse, she can also inject malicious messages on the device.
And we could go on. There’s ample evidence that Bluetooth is about as secure as a padlock sculpted from fusilli pasta.
It’s Usually the Manufacturer’s Fault
Speaking of fusilli padlocks, it’s not the exploits in the Bluetooth specification that are to blame. Bluetooth device manufacturers shoulder significant responsibility for compounding Bluetooth’s vulnerabilities. Sam Quinn, a security researcher with McAfee Advanced Threat Research, told How-to Geek about a vulnerability he disclosed for a Bluetooth smart padlock:
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