Is Bluetooth broken?

Probably most of us use Bluetooth wireless connectivity without really thinking about it. In my case just this morning, I have been out in my car, my iPhone connected automatically and I listened to some music, at this moment I am again listening to music from my phone via a Bluetooth speaker in the office, my mouse is Bluetooth and then there is my Apple Watch/iPhone connection always on and with me…

Bluetooth is everywhere.

Now there is research that demonstrates six attacks against Bluetooth at the architectual level meaning the attacks are not dependent on individual device flaws but could impact anything using Bluetooth. This means billions of devices could be vulnerable.

BLUFFS: Bluetooth Forward and Future Secrecy Attacks and Defenses

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group – a non-profit organisation that oversees the Bluetooth standard and licences the technology is aware of the research and has a statement on it’s site:

Security Notice | Bluetooth® Technology Website

As with all (most) research and papers this is just in lab work, there are no reported exploits in the wild… yet.