Case Study on the Bluetooth Vulnerabilities in Mobile Devices

As the widespread use and acceptance of Bluetooth continues concerns are being raised related to security vulnerabilities and privacy issues inherent in the use of this technology. Inadequate device resources and lack of user awareness has compounded this issue where the emphasis on design constraints, functionality and ease of use sometimes outweigh security concerns. Recently some concerns have being highlighted relating to the possible security vulnerabilities in commonly used devices, and also the possibility of the imperceptible tracking of device users through the use of distributed and connected Bluetooth sensor nodes. This paper discusses some of these issues and highlights a number of vulnerabilities in the current generation of Bluetooth enabled devices. In particular, the current methods being used to exploit these vulnerabilities are discussed and the results from a case study are presented which identify the percentage of popular devices susceptible to this type of misuse.