Bluetooth is a standard protocol that is used for connecting many other devices. These devices can be other computers, laptops, smartphones, or other I/O devices. Bluetooth uses radio transmissions to communicate with a frequency range similar to Wi-Fi. Bluetooth uses low power when compared to other mediums of information. Bluetooth devices always pair with each other for any form of data transfer, depending on the device’s security and how it sometimes connects. It just needs to find other devices in its environment, whereas in some cases, it asks the user to enter the pin to connect to the other device.
Due to its functionality of being able to send the data or any other sensitive information, Hackers sometimes use this feature to their advantage if your Bluetooth device isn’t locked down properly. Hackers use different attacks to take control of the victim’s device over Bluetooth and take the vital data that can be used.
Nowadays, Bluetooth is available on every other device, so it has become even more prone to attacks, and hackers take advantage of the lack of awareness of Bluetooth attacks. Through a Bluetooth attack, a hacker can spam your devices with all kinds of malware and spyware, and even steal data from them.
Bluesnarfing:
Bluesnarfing is a hacking technique that is used to retrieve data from a victim’s device. Bluesnarfing attacks happen when your Bluetooth is on and set on “discoverable to others” mode. To launch a Bluesnarfing attack, the attacker needs to exploit the object exchange protocol (OBEX protocol) to exchange information between the wireless devices. OBEX is a vendor-independent protocol implemented on different operating systems. Many tools are used to exploit the inherent vulnerabilities and loopholes of the OBEX Protocol.
Hackers can pair themselves with the victim’s device. Then the attackers can retrieve the data from the victim’s device if their firmware protection is not that strong.
Bluesnarfing software:
Often, hackers create their own software for hacking otherwise, many options are present on the dark web. One of them is Bluediving, which is used for the penetration testing of Blue tooth devices. It has different tools to exploit the OBEX protocol, like BlueBug, BlueSnarf, BlueSnarf++, BlueSmack, etc.
The minimum requirements for this software are:
- Linux 2.4/2.6
- BlueZ
- SOX
- obexftp
- libreadline
- expat/XML: Simple
Prevention from Bluesnarfing:
- Keep the Bluetooth off or in non-discoverable mode when it is not in use. Keeping it off is recommended as a device in non-discoverable mode has little chance of being attacked as a hacker can still Bluesnarf it by guessing the victim’s MAC address via a brute force attack.
- Do not accept any connection requests from strangers or ones you don’t recognize.
- The advanced security features such as two-factor authentication and pin must be activated on your devices; then, all connection requests will require your approval before connecting.
- Regularly update your device’s software to install new packages fixing the vulnerabilities.