The expert warned about the threat of smartphone hacking via Bluetooth

MOSCOW, 24 Oct – PRIME. Any way a smartphone interacts with the external environment or another device creates additional threats to information security, even a Bluetooth connection is potentially dangerous, Alexey Kubarev, director of information security at T1 Cloud, told the Prime agency.

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According to him, there is a possibility of interception or substitution of information transmitted via Bluetooth by attackers. “Such an attack is possible only if the Bluetooth connection is active. If the interface is inactive, then it is impossible,” he clarifies.

In addition, if the attacker’s device connects to the attacked device, then such a connection allows you to send control commands to the smartphone. And then the possible threats “are limited only by the imagination and competence of the violator.” However, such an attack is possible only after adding the intruder’s Bluetooth device to the list of trusted persons “on the target device”.

“Also, a Bluetooth connection can be used to receive and run malicious software on the attacked device. But this requires confirmation from the smartphone owner of receiving the file and launching it,” explains Kubarev.

At the same time, as the expert emphasizes, all attacks using a Bluetooth connection are limited by its range, and it is “comparatively small” – about 10 meters. That is, to carry out an attack, the intruder must be in close proximity to the device of interest to him.

In addition, most of these attacks require confirmation from the owner of the smartphone.

“Therefore, from the point of view of an attacker, attacks of a different type look more promising – transferring malicious software to a device using instant messengers, e-mail, obtaining identification and authentication data using social engineering from resources containing information to be protected, gaining access to cloud storages containing information from the target device,” the expert believes.

According to Kubarev, the recipe for dealing with attacks via Bluetooth is simple – vigilance and caution. He advises to be careful when connecting external devices to the target device, do not allow connection of suspicious and unfamiliar devices, turn off the Bluetooth interface when it is not necessary to use it, do not transfer sensitive information over this connection that needs to be protected, do not accept suspicious files and in no way case, do not run them.