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Nokia Admits Multiple Bluetooth Security Holes
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia has admitted that four of its handsets (6310, 6310i, 8910 and 8910i) have multiple security vulnerabilities that can allow an attacker to read, edit and copy the contacts and calendar entries using Bluetooth. This admission comes after a ZDNet UK article published earlier today. the spokesperson advises customers to switch off Bluetooth in public places!" For more information, see the bluesnarfing site pointed out by reader profet.
This is exactly the reason why its such a big issue.
As an consumer, if you have a bluetooth phone all you are likely to have is the phone number of your friends.
As a geek, you are more than likely to have a PDA for keeping anything more detailed/sensitive.
Business users, executives etc. are more likely to use the advanced functions of there phones and therefore it is they that are most at risk to losing sensitive data.
So, whilst most models dont have bluetooth, the ones that do are the ones that are liekly to have the most valuable information.
Nokia is not the only phone maker with broken or stupid bluetooth implementations. Just look at the Siemens S55 which by default (when bluetooth is on) accpets any kind of files and saves them to your phones inbox. Also it has several bugs, like the Nokia. I'm have setup a small website (http://www.betaversion.net/btdsd/) with a currently very small list of bluetooth capable phones with there security settings and bugs. I tell you bluetooth will be real fun in the future :-)
Interestingly from what I have read about the security vulnerabilities with the *five* models affected by this (Nokia 6310, 6310i, 8910, 8910i and 7650), Nokia has confirmed only that the 7650 has the problem. Also reported that some SonyEricsson phones would have similar vulnerabilities, but it was not stated which models. So, I take it that at least these five Nokia phones have the Bluetooth holes. But what is interesting is that different news-feeds report Nokia confirming/denying different models! What this really tells us that the writers of the news themselves are either: 1) Too lazy to look it up from Nokia itself. 2) Too naive to take some other newsfeeds info as a fact. 3) Too inexperienced to check the validity of the info. 4) Too ??? to ??? So, who made the mistake? ALL the "reporters" who did not check the validity of the news by themselves straight from the source.
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
That's why my home LAN is wired -- so I at least know if anyone is tapping me, then they must be on the inside.
This isn't true -- you can pick up (copper) LAN signals from a reasonable distance, which is why the military always uses fiber outside of shielded environments. At least when sensitive data is expected to travel along the pipes.
The most obvious way to test this is to place an ordinary FM radio antenna along the network wire and see how much junk you are picking up; you can clearly hear the intensity of the network traffic.
I heard this traffic when sitting in my car in the company parking lot at one of my previous jobs and so knew when the builds were done.
Granted, the equipment is fairly expensive, but don't think for a second that you're safe because you're wired. Wires leak like hell.