This archive report was first published on 19 August 2019.
Published on August 19, 2019, a tech report exposed a critical vulnerability in Bluetooth connections, putting millions of devices at risk of hacking.
Bluetooth technology has become an essential part of our daily lives, allowing us to connect and control devices with ease. However, a recent discovery has raised concerns about the security of these connections.
A group of researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design, University of Oxford, and CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security found a vulnerability in the Bluetooth standard, known as the KNOB (Key Negotiation of Bluetooth) attack.
According to the report, the KNOB attack allows hackers to spy on a victim's personal conversations and manipulate the data present on the compromised device. The attackers exploit the vulnerability in the Bluetooth standard, weakening the encryption key instead of breaking it straightaway.
The researchers explained that the attacker gets in the way while the devices are setting up the encryption key and resorts to a brute force attack to break the new key with fewer digits. This allows the attacker to manipulate both devices to employ the new encryption key.
Fortunately, giant companies like Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Blackberry, Broadcom, and Chicony have already issued a patch to fix the glitch. However, the vulnerability affects almost all devices, including those from Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel.
