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| Serious flaws in bluetooth security lead to disclosure of personal
data
Summary There are serious flaws in the authentication and/or data transfer mechanisms on some bluetooth enabled devices. Specifically, two vulnerabilities have been found: Firstly, confidential data can be obtained, anonymously, and without the owner's knowledge or consent, from some bluetooth enabled mobile phones. This data includes, at least, the entire phonebook and calendar. Secondly, it has been found that the complete memory contents of some mobile phones can be accessed by a previously trusted ("paired") device that has since been removed from the trusted list. This data includes not only the phonebook and calendar, but media files such as pictures and text messages. In essence, the entire device can be "backed up" to an attacker's own system. Finally, the current trend for "Bluejacking" is promoting an environment which puts consumer devices at greater risk from the above attacks. Vulnerabilities The SNARF attack: It is possible, on some makes of device, to connect to the device without alerting the owner of the target device of the request, and gain access to restricted portions of the stored data therein, including the entire phonebook (and any images or other data associated with the entries), calendar, realtime clock, business card, properties, change log etc. This is normally only possible if the device is in "discoverable" or "visible" mode, but there are tools available on the Internet that allow even this safety net to be bypassed[4]. Further details will not be released at this time (see below for more on this), but the attack can and will be demonstrated to manufacturers and press if required. The BACKDOOR attack: The backdoor attack involves establishing a trust relationship through the "pairing" mechanism, but ensuring that it no longer appears in the target's register of paired devices. In this way, unless the owner is actually observing their device at the precise moment a connection is established, they are unlikely to notice anything untoward, and the attacker may be free to continue to use any resource that a trusted relationship with that device grants access to (but note that so far we have only tested file transfers). This means that not only can data be retrieved from the phone, but other services, such as modems or Internet, WAP and GPRS gateways may be accessed without the owner's knowledge or consent. Indications are that once the backdoor is installed, the above SNARF attack will function on devices that previously denied access, and without the restrictions of a plain SNARF attack, so we strongly suspect that the other services will prove to be available also. Bluejacking: Although known to the technical community and early adopters for some time, the process now known as "Bluejacking"[1] has recently come to the fore in the consumer arena, and is becoming a popular mechanism for exchanging anonymous messages in public places. The technique involves abusing the bluetooth "pairing"[2] protocol, the system by which bluetooth devices authenticate each other, to pass a message during the initial "handshake" phase. This is possible because the "name" of the initiating bluetooth device is displayed on the target device as part of the handshake exchange, and, as the protocal allows a large user defined name field - up to 248 characters - the field itself can be used to pass the message. This is all well and good, and, on the face of it, fairly harmless, but, unfortunately, there is a down side. There is a potential security problem with this, and the more the practice grows and is accepted by the user community, and leveraged as a marketing tool by the vendors, the worse it will get. The problem lies in the fact that the protocol being abused is designed for information exchange. The ability to interface with other devices and exchange, update and synchronise data, is the raison d'e^tre of bluetooth. The bluejacking technique is using the first part of a process that allows that exchange to take place, and is therefore open to further abuse if the handshake completes and the "bluejacker" successfully pairs with the target device. If such an event occurs, then all data on the target device bacomes available to the initiator, including such things as phone books, calendars, pictures and text messages. As the current wave of PDA and telephony integration progresses, the volume and quality of such data will increase with the devices' capabilities, leading to far more serious potential compromise. Given the furore that errupted when a second-hand Blackberry PDA was sold without the previous owner's data having been wiped[3], it is alarming to think of the consequences of a single bluejacker gathering an entire corporate staff's contact details by simply attending a conference or camping outside their building or in their foyer with a bluetooth capable device and evil intent. Of course, corporates are not the only potential targets - a bluejacking expedition to, say, The House of Commons, or The US Senate, could provide some interesting, valuable and, who's to say, potentially damaging or compromising data. The above may sound alarmist and far fetched, and the general reaction would probably be that most users would not be duped into allowing the connection to complete, so the risk is small. However, in today's society of instant messaging, the average consumer is under a constant barrage of unsolicted messages in one form or another, whether it be by SPAM email, or "You have won!" style SMS text messages, and do not tend to treat them with much suspicion (although they may well be sceptical about the veracity of the offers). Another message popping up on their 'phone saying something along the lines of "You have won 10,000 pounds! Enter this 4 digit PIN number and then dial 0900-SUCKER to collect your prize!" is unlikely to cause much alarm, and is more than likely to succeed in many cases. Workarounds and fixes We are not aware of any fixes for the SNARF attack at this time other than to switch off bluetooth. To permanently remove a pairing, and protect against future BACKDOOR attacks, it seems you must perform a factory reset, but this will, of course, erase all your personal data. To avoid Bluejacking, "just say no". :) The above methods work to the best of our knowledge, but, as the devices affected are running closed-source proprietory software, it not possible to verify that without the collaboration of the manufacturers. We therefore make no claims as to the level of protection they provide, and you must continue to use bluetooth at your own risk. Who's Vulnerable To date the quantity of devices tested is not great. However, due to the fact that they are amongst the most popular brands, we still consider the affected group to be large. It is also assumed that there are shared implementations of the bluetooth stack, so what affects one model is likely to affect others. The devices known to be vulnerable at this time are: SNARF attack: Ericsson: T68, T68i, T610 BACKDOOR attack: Nokia: 6310i, 7650 * It is not known at this time if Ericsson's are also vulnerable to the BACKDOOR attack. Disclosure What is the Philosophy of Full Disclosure, and why are we providing the tools and detailing the methods that allow this to be done? The reasoning is simple - by exposing the problem we are achieving two goals: firstly, to alert users that the dangers exist, in order that they can take their own precautions against compromise, and secondly, to put pressure on manufacturers to rectify the situation. Consumers have a right to expect that their confidential data is treated as such, and is not subject to simple compromise by poorly implemented protocols on consumer devices. Manufacturers have a duty of care to ensure that such protection is provided, but, in practice, commercial considerations will often take precedence, and, given the choice, they may choose to simply supress or hide the problem, or, even worse, push for laws that prevent the discovery and/or disclosure of such flaws[5]. In our humble opinion, laws provide scant consumer protection against the lawless. However, having said that, in this particular case, we do not feel it is appropriate to follow the normal procedure of liaising with manufacturers and giving them an opportunity to rectify the problem before disclosing to the general public (this is not to say we haven't contacted them - we have), as there are simply too many of them, and the problem is too widespread to realistically believe that they could either adhere to the strict levels of confidentiality required until the problem has been rectified, or that there is even the possibilty that the problem can be rectified in a reasonable timescale. Also, the volume of data currently at risk is too great to allow the situation to continue unchecked. Instead, we feel it is more important to achieve our primary goal, and alert the general public to the fact that the problem exists, and to give them the information required to adequetely defend themselves. Fortunately, the defence is relatively simple, and is detailed above. To date we do not have a large selection of phones or other devices to test, so the advice is somewhat generic, but we will publish more detailed information as and when it becomes available. Tools Proof of concept utilities have been developed, but are not yet available in the wild. They are: bluestumbler - Monitor and log all visible bluetooth devices (name, MAC, signal strength, capabilities), and identify manufacturer from MAC address lookup. bluebrowse - Display available services on a selected device (FAX, Voice, OBEX etc). bluejack - Send anoymous message to a target device (and optionally broadcast to all visible devices). bluesnarf - Copy data from target device (everything if pairing succeeds, or a subset in other cases, including phonebook and calendar. In the latter case, user will not be alerted by any bluejack message). Tools will not be released at this time, so please do not ask. However, if you are a bona-fide manufacturer of bluetooth devices that we have been otherwise unable to contact, please feel free to get in touch for more details on how you can identify your device status. Credits The above vulnerabilities were discovered by Adam Laurie, during the course of his work with A.L. Digital, in November 2003, and this announcement was prepared thereafter by Adam and Ben Laurie for immediate release. Adam Laurie is Managing Director and Chief Security Officer of A.L. Digital Ltd. Ben Laurie is Technical Director of A.L. Digital, and author of Apache-SSL and contributor to many other open source projects, too numerous to expand on here. A.L. Digital Ltd. are the owner operators of The Bunker, the world's most secure data centre(s). e: adam@algroup.co.uk e: ben@algroup.co.uk Further information relating to this disclosure will be updated at http://www.bluestumbler.org References: [1] - http://www.bluejackq.com/ [2] - http://www.palowireless.com/infotooth/tutorial/lmp.asp [3] - http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=blackberryforsale1061969777 [4] - http://bluesniff.shmoo.com/ [5] - http://www.eff.org/ Copyright (c) 2003, Adam Laurie, Ben Laurie, A.L. Digital Ltd.,
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