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Firmware update hides a device’s Bluetooth fingerprint
A smartphone’s unique Bluetooth fingerprint could be used to track the device’s user–until now. A team of researchers have developed a simple firmware update that can completely hide the Bluetooth fingerprint, eliminating the vulnerability.
The UC San Diego researchers implemented a prototype of this new defense on the Texas Instruments CC2640 chipset currently used in a number of smart devices, such as fitness trackers, tags and lighting systems. “This defense can be rolled out incrementally, requiring only software modification on at least one widely-used Bluetooth Low Energy chipset,” said Hadi Givehchian, the paper’s first author and a Ph.D. student in the UC San Diego Department of Computer Science and Engineering. In 2022, a team of engineers at the University of California San Diego has demonstrated for the first time that the Bluetooth signals emitted constantly by our mobile phones have a unique fingerprint that can be used to track individuals’ movements.
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