Geeks in Paradise | Brian Chee » I have the Blue Tooth Blues

January 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

I have the Blue Tooth Blues

TAGS: Lab Freaks

It's the 40th anniversary of the Consumer Electronics show and two years since the first Blue Tooth proximity virus reared its head; and it's still too common to find mobile devices willing to accept a file transfer from anyone in the vicinity.

So while I was waiting in the press room my curiosity got the best of me and I did some simple scanning with my old iPaq H3900 with the older v1.0 Blue Tooth radio. (limited distance) With at least 2 dozen devices in range, 80% of these were willing to talk to me, 80% of those were willing to accept business cards and 10% were willing to accept a file. The sad part is that 100% of the Symbian devices in view were willing to accept a file, which would make them vulnerable to the Caribe virus specific to that mobile platform.

Information from CERT on the Caribe Virus:

So wake up folks, it's time to do just a few keystrokes to turn off the anonymous trust on your Blue Tooth devices. It's only a matter of time before someone tosses a nasty virus into the wild that targets your mobile device. It would be all too easy to cobble up a Java program that takes pictures at random times and upload them someplace. Or turns off the ringer, and turns on the auto answer speakerphone so that your employees carry the proverbial bug into your meetings.

I may have only been scanning for devices with an ancient iPaq, but a simple Pringles can antenna with a Bluetooth finder kit and you have a recipe for some long distance mischief. So time to update those phones and to at least make sure your phone prompts you if someone sends a file at you.

Posted by Brian Chee on January 10, 2007 11:08 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE: