Bluetooth Security Features

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Summary

This Page is work in progress please come back later.

This documentation is a survey about the security features of Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy.

Basic Security Services

  • Authentication: verifies the identity of communicating devices based on their Bluetooth address. User authentication is not provided by the Bluetooth Specification.
  • Confidentiality: prevents eavesdropping of the transmitted data by an untrusted third person in the piconet. Confidentiality is created by data encryption.
  • Authorization: controls the access of the resources. It assures that only authorized devices get permitted to access a service.
  • Message Integrity: checks if the data was altered during the transmission.
  • Pairing/Bonding: creates shared secret keys to use them in subsequent connections.

Bluetooth Classic Security

Bluetooth Classic defines encryption and authentication during two different stages of the communication setup. The stages can be differed in Link-level and Service-level. Link-level enforced security features occur before the Bluetooth physical link is fully established. Service-level enforced security features occur after the physical link is already established and while the logical link gets established.Security mode one to the three were defined before Bluetooth version 2.1 came out. Bluetooth version 2.1 added the fourth security mode.

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Security Mode 1

This mode is considered as non-secure because it doesn’t use authentication nor encryption. Security Mode 1 is only supported by today's Bluetooth devices to communicate with old devices that are not capable of the other security modes.

Security Mode 2

This mode establishes security at Link-level by using a local security manager that controls the access of supported services. It’s even possible to restrict access on a part of the services depending on the trust to the accessing device. Bluetooth service discovery can be performed without any security challenges.

Security Mode 3

Security Mode 4

  • Layer 0:
  • Layer 1:
  • Layer 2:
  • Layer 3:
  • Layer 4:

Bluetooth Low Energy Security

Courses

References