American scientists have called Bluetooth a potentially dangerous technology in terms of hacking. The study was published on the website of the University of California, San Diego (USA).
Experts talked about Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, which, due to low power consumption, allows the user’s smartphone to interact with various accessories. According to experts, BLE consumes negligible amount of energy, so it can work constantly.
In the course of the study, the scientists abandoned attempts to break the encryption of the wireless protocol, instead they concentrated on identifying the unique features of the broadcast radio signal. It turned out that for a more stable contact, all wireless sensors have a unique identifier. Theoretically, it is possible to calculate a specific user from it.
It turned out that the false negative rate of the BLE signal was about zero percent. This means that almost always – with the exception of a few cases – the Bluetooth-connected accessory has been recognized correctly. According to experts, the technology has an irreparable vulnerability, but to protect against hacking, you just need to disable Bluetooth on the phone.
In June, Avast Senior Software Engineer for Digital Security Vojtech Boček said that an always-on Bluetooth module could cause a smartphone to be hacked. The risk can be minimized by turning off the interface when it is not needed.
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