An active man-in-the-middle attack on bluetooth smart devices
Open accessAbstract
In the last years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become integral part of our lives and its influence is expected to exponentially increase in the next years.For several reasons, however, the development of IoT has not gone hand in hand with an adequate reinforcement and consolidation of our security and privacy, despite the serious impact that IoT vulnerabilities may have on our digital and physical security.Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), also known as Bluetooth Smart, is the most popular protocol for interfacing smart devices, wearables, and medical equipment.This contribution surveys the key security issues in the BLE protocol and discusses a possible architecture for BLE Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks together with the related necessary equipment.In addition, after introducing some of the available tools for hacking BLE, a case-study based on their use was presented, which describes a MitM attack between a Bluetooth smart device and its designated mobile app.The case-study well exemplifies how easily, given the required proximity to the target, a possible hacker can control the data and, in some instances, even the mobile device itself, when connecting it to a BLE device.
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Network traffic is intercepted by the attacker through impersonation.
“Network traffic is intercepted by the attacker through impersonation [66].”
From IoT cyber risk: A holistic analysis of cyber risk assessment frameworks, risk vectors, and risk ranking process (2020) · cites this paper as [66]
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Cites
The advantages of elliptic curve cryptography for wireless security
Lauter, K. (2004) · IEEE Wireless Communications · doi:10.1109/mwc.2004.1269719 · Cited by 380 · see citing works
Bluetooth: with low energy comes low security
Ryan, M. (2013) · Cited by 175 · see citing works
Dudhane, N. A., & Pitambare, S. T. (2015) · Lecture Notes on Information Theory · doi:10.18178/lnit.3.1.31-34 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Bluetooth, S.I.G, SIG introduces bluetooth low energy wireless technology, the next generation of Bluetooth wireless technology, press release, 2009.
- Syverson, P., A taxonomy of replay attacks, computer security foundations workshop VII, CSFW 7, IEEE, pp. 187-191, 1994.
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Kandasamy, K., Srinivas, S., Achuthan, K., & Rangan, V. P. (2020) · EURASIP Journal on Information Security · doi:10.1186/s13635-020-00111-0 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
An Improved Authentication Scheme for BLE Devices with No I/O Capabilities
Gupta, C., & Varshney, G. (2023) · Computer Communications · doi:10.1016/j.comcom.2023.01.001 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
- Authors
- Melamed, T.
- Corresponding author
- Melamed, Tal
- Venue
- International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering
- Published
- 2018-02-01
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 200-211
- ISSN
- 2041-9031 (ISSN-L)
- 2041-904X
- OpenAlex
- W2771982916
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 3.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Bluetooth and Wireless Communication Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Advanced Authentication Protocols Security
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Security and Verification in Computing
- Keywords
- Bluetooth Low Energy, man-in-the-middle attacks, Internet of Things security, IoT vulnerabilities, smart devices, wearable devices, mobile application security, physical security
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