Bluetooth hack shakes mobile security
By John Leyden
Published Wednesday 8th June 2005 16:26 GMT
Cryptographers have discovered a security flaw in implementations of
Bluetooth which allows hackers to pair their devices with prospective
victims. The approach creates a means for hackers to hijack Bluetooth-
enabled devices. It's not all just theory either, unlike most
cryptographic attacks.
The researchers - Yaniv Shaked and Avishai Wool of Tel Aviv
University in Israel - have come up with an exploit which allows
hackers to pair with devices without alerting their owner. The
approach gets around limitations of a security attack first described
by Ollie Whitehouse of security firm @Stake last year. This earlier
method meant an attacker needed to eavesdrop the initial connection
process (pairing) between two Bluetooth devices, which only occurs
infrequently.
Shaked and Wool have worked out a way to force this pairing process
by masquerading as a device, already paired with a target, that has
supposedly forgotten a link key used to secure communications. This
initiates a fresh pairing session which a hacker can exploit to
snaffle the link key and thereby establish a pairing without needed
to know PIN details. Once a connection is set up, an attacker could
make eavesdrop on data transmitted between a target devices and a PC
or (at least potentially) take control of someone's Bluetooth device.
"Once an attacker has forced two devices to pair, they can work out
the link key in just 0.06 seconds on a Pentium IV-enabled computer,"
New Scientist reports.
Shaked and Wool are scheduled to outline their research at the
MobiSys conference in Seattle this week.
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