A groundbreaking discovery by Eurecom researchers has unveiled the ‘BLUFFS’ attacks, marking a significant threat to Bluetooth security. These attacks, spearheaded by Daniele Antonioli, exploit critical flaws within Bluetooth’s core, compromising the secrecy of Bluetooth sessions and potentially enabling man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks and device impersonation. These vulnerabilities, tracked under CVE-2023-24023, impact Bluetooth Core Specifications ranging from 4.2 to 5.4 and pose a widespread threat, potentially affecting billions of devices worldwide, including smartphones, laptops, and various other mobile devices.
BLUFFS attack exploits four distinct flaws in the session key derivation process, two of which are newly discovered, leading to the creation of weak and predictable session keys (SKC). This breakthrough allows attackers within Bluetooth range to decrypt historical communications and manipulate future exchanges between devices. The attack method involves coercing the negotiation of a weak session key by impersonating one device to the other, exploiting vulnerabilities in the session key derivation process. With this compromised encryption, attackers can infiltrate Bluetooth connections, undermining the confidentiality of past and future data exchanges.
The ramifications of BLUFFS pose a critical challenge to Bluetooth security protocols, underscoring the urgent need for mitigating measures. These attacks highlight the vulnerability of Bluetooth technology at its foundational level, emphasizing the imperative for immediate action to reinforce Bluetooth security protocols and safeguard against potential exploitation, protecting the integrity and confidentiality of data transmitted through Bluetooth connections.
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