March 30, 2007
UK financial advisers, Grant Thornton, says that organizations that fail to lock-down bluetooth connections on company-owned laptops and other portable devices are taking a huge data theft gamble. The company says the number of bluesnarfing attacks - where a connection between two devices is forced without the consent of the target machine - is on the increase.
Grant Thornton gives the unsurprising advice that non-essential bluetooth links should be turned off. But can employees be trusted to do this themselves, or is it better to manage this centrally?
Solutions like Centennial DeviceWall can help extend endpoint security by locking-down bluetooth connections in addition to managing the flow of data through wired communications such as USB and firwire ports. With every new laptop now seemingly enabled for bluetooth out-of-the-box, could 2007 be the year of the ‘bluesnarfer’?
August 9, 2006
Last year we broke the news that mobile-enabled laptops were increasingly at risk of “bluejacking” - where Bluetooth connections were hi-jacked by unauthorized parties looking to access confidential information. Well, it was only a matter of time before someone coined the phrase “blackjacking” for the similar hi-jacking of Blackberry devices. But it would appear the risks are far more serious than the name might suggest…
A ’security consultant’ has apparently created a Blackberry-based game which can be download from the internet. Only the game isn’t just a game - it’s also a clever piece of spyware which turns the mobile device into a back door onto the corporate network. Using this malicious code, a hacker could gain access to all sorts of confidential data from inside the organization.
The code, which is promised to become available in August illustrates all-to-clearly the risks associated with allowing these devices unrestricted connectivity to the corporate network. And with an estimated 5.5 million Blackberrys in circulation, is your network safe from this latest threat?
More from the BBC
October 14, 2005
John Hering, a student at the University of Southern California, has developed a tool that exploits unsecured Bluetooth devices. He calls it the “BlueSniper rifle” and it has a range of over a mile, well beyond the 300 foot maximum range of Bluetooth. Yet another reason to develop a security policy around the use of these devices in the workplace, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t Bluesnarfing you!
Read the full article and listen to an interview with John Hering
