Bluetooth: Be Wary

Notes taken by: Theresa Payton, Fortalice, LLC. Also featured in WBTV's Protecting Your Cyberturf segment featuring Kristen Miranda and Theresa Payton.

Many of us use and love Bluetooth technology. You can use it to send a document

from your laptop to a printer in another room via a radio frequency. It’s easy to

set up and convenient to use! But you might want to think twice about what you

use it for because that easy connection for you can also be an easy connection for a

cybercreep. Cyber expert, Theresa Payton, explains what you need to do to

protect yourself.

THE RISKS:

1. You may be shouting out your information via your voice

2. What makes Bluetooth easy to work for you, can make it open to someone to

eavesdrop.

Have you ever been at a house where the baby monitor or the cordless phones pick

up the neighbor’s conversations? This is sort of like that.

It’s also less about your actual Bluetooth itself and the fact that many people walk

around with the Bluetooth enabled on their smartphone when they don’t use it

which means it’s open for cybercreeps to Bluetooth their way in.

When you have Bluetooth turned on but not in use, you are basically broadcasting

that your phone is on & available for other to Bluetooth to it!

HOW THEY DO IT:

A hacker can run a program on the computer that scans for Bluetooth connections.

When they find one, bingo, they connect and they are in.

WHAT THEY TYPICALLY STEAL:

What do they take? Typically things like your address book, possibly your calendar,

photos, using your phone to make long distance calls, or they may turn your phone

into an impromptu speaker and listen to your conversations.

3 TIPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF:

1. Turn your Bluetooth to “off” on devices such as your phone when not using the

Bluetooth feature

2. You can also look at your manufacturer settings to see if there is a “hidden”

or “private” mode

3. Refrain from sensitive and personal conversations using the Bluetooth device

WORD OF THE WEEK:

Snarfing: A blend of two words “snort” and “scarf” which are techie terms for

stealing data over wireless. If you snoop or steal data on a Bluetooth device it is

called Bluesnarfing

Bluetooth offers a page dedicated to security questions:

http://bluetooth.com/English/Technology/Works/Security/Pages/SecurityQA.aspx

BlackBerry users can find help on how to secure their BlueTooth connection at:

http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/16648/

Protecting_Bluetooth_connections_on_a_BB_843702_11.jsp

Contact your phone service provider with any security questions you might have.