Bluetooth Security in Wearable Computing Applications

Abstract

Advances in wireless sensor networking technologies have been extended to wearable computing systems and opened a plethora of applications and opportunities in the development and integration of pervasive Bluetooth Technologies with the abundance of existing specialized technologies in monitoring, data collection, and real-time analysis and reporting. Although the Bluetooth framework is acceptably secure, there are still a number of weaknesses in the Bluetooth technology. The nature of the wireless ad hoc and the device addressing schemes still make the Bluetooth protocol vulnerable to possible attacks and risks. This paper analyzes some of the vulnerabilities of Bluetooth architecture to possible attacks and risks and the best practices and countermeasures needed to thwart these attacks that target Bluetooth devices and their attached networks. It concentrates on Bluetooth technology security issues and challenges that face wireless computing systems.