Billions of smartphones around the world are insecure due to the weakness of Bluetooth
By Rabindra Dhungel, 20 september 2020. A study has found that billions of smartphones and other electronic devices around the world are insecure due to the weakness of Bluetooth.
Research has shown that smartphones, tablets, laptops and other IoT devices have a spoofing attack on the Bluetooth Low Energy 9BLE protocol. Most Android devices have been affected. Apple has already solved this problem in iOS 13.4 and iPad 13.4.
According to research, this targets the reconnection process of the protocol rather than the pairing vulnerability of the devices. A team from Purdue University has discovered the vulnerability. This attack is said to bring spoof or scam data to the vulnerability device. This adversely affects the device. But this vulnerability does not affect Windows devices.
The use of Bluetooth low energy devices is so prevalent in the world that billions of devices around the world may be at risk of this type of attack.
All smartphones, tablets, laptops and other IoT devices using the Bluetooth software stack are now at risk of this new security threat. BLESA is a thinner version of the original Bluetooth Classic Standard. But it is designed to consume less battery power to make the Bluetooth connection last longer.
Due to its battery saving feature, BLE has been widely used in the last decade. It became the most widely used technology for every battery powered device. Due to its widespread use, researchers are constantly researching it.