Most of our students have cell phones, and many of them also have Bluetooth devices, such as wireless headsets. However, most people don’t realize that Bluetooth transmissions are not a secure technology. In this video, Joshua Wright (an instructor at the SANS Institute) shows us how easy it is to listen in on a Bluetooth device and even inject your own audio into the device you’ve compromised.
Although requiring technical skills beyond the casual computer user (as it involves using Linux and other seemingly arcane protocols), a computer science student would probably have no trouble in replicating these actions. In fact, there are many web sites that list Bluetooth hacking tools with links to download them. Fortunately there are simple ways to protect yourself from Bluetooth snooping, and one of the best resources for Bluetooth protection is on the Bluetooth site itself. Following these guidelines should help your students (and you!) stay more secure when using Bluetooth enabled devices.
Discussion Questions for Students:
1) What types of Bluetooth devices do you use on a regular basis? Have you configured them (after pairing them with your devices) into a non-discoverable state so that other Bluetooth devices can’t find them?
2) Have you updated the firmware (for that matter, what is firmware?) in your Bluetooth devices lately? Do you know how to do this? Do you know why it is important to do this?
3) Do you have antivirus software installed on your phone or PDA? Do you keep it updated on a regular basis?
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