What is BlueSnarfing and how to avoid it

What is BlueSnarfing? It may not sound familiar to you at all but for your own sake and that of your privacy you want to avoid it, and that is why you are here, to learn more about it and above all learn how to avoid it with different useful tips. Nowadays, technology and with it wireless connectivity are advancing by leaps and bounds, and that is why it is good that you want to be informed as much as possible about all these topics.

For this reason and as always, since Tecnobits We will try to help you. Because in the end heSecurity and privacy is a common good or rather a right, that we must all preserve. There is no need to make things easier for all those people who want to take advantage of small failures in the different supports or computer systems. Let's all make it difficult for everyone.

What is Bluesnarfing? How does this technique work?

It seems simple but it is not that simple, much less doing it. BlueSnarfing requires knowledge of hacking and computer security. That's why the sooner you know what Bluensarfing is, how it works and, above all, how to avoid it, the better, since this technique is becoming fashionable in recent times. And the worst, It is based on Bluetooth, that is, wireless connectivity. 

To be clear, BlueSnarfing is an attack on your security using your mobile phone over the Bluetooth wireless connection. That's why it's called Bluensarfing, because joins the words Bluetooth and snarf, which in English means to copy something without permission.

Starting from this, and knowing a little about how Bluetooth works since we have all activated and deactivated it, the hacker or person who wants to violate your security and privacy will have to find themselves. moderately close to you, because you already know that otherwise it will not detect your device and its connectivity.

In addition to that, of course, you will have to have Bluetooth turned on and above all, allow connection. It seems like a lot of conditions, but if you make a mistake you can easily fall without realizing it.

The problem is that in advanced BlueSnarfing there are many hackers or attackers who They do not even require permission from that connection, That is why it becomes a much greater danger. Because it is no longer based on an oversight, which is still illegal no matter how oversight it may be. It is based on bypassing the security of your device and going straight into stealing sensitive information from your private life, work, banking and everything you can carry on your mobile phone.

To be more schematic, the process is divided into three phases:

1. Detection of your mobile device with Bluetooth connection activated.
2. Vulnerability detection and skip them.
3. Data access of the mobile device once the Bluetooth and mobile phone security measures have been bypassed

 

Once they are inside and have access to data, the most common things and the points that the person or hacker who has entered wants to know are the following:

1. Theft of personal information: email addresses, telephone numbers, personal messages, home addresses...
2. Business information: This may not be your case, but today we all have access to our corporate emails, to sensitive information subject to data protection laws and even if you are a senior official in your company you can have very sensitive information of all kinds, from financial to others.
3. saved files- The hacker will be able to access all your saved photos and sensitive files. Imagine the amount of things that person will be able to see.
4. Impersonation: As simple as having all your personal information, even with the previous step you may already have a photograph of your national identity document, passport, bank cards and much other sensitive information. With all this, you can impersonate your identity without any problem. You don't want to wake up and have purchases with your Amazon account that you haven't made, a new bank account, movements in your account...

Now that you know what BlueSnarfing is and how computer hackers proceed in general terms or, above all, what information they are most interested in, we proceed to try to give you several tips so that you can prevent this risk.

How to avoid BlueSnarfing? Different prevention techniques

First of all, and now that we know what BlueSnarfing is, we are going to get into the prevention techniques of this hacking technique. Because we assume that's what you're coming for. Most of them are techniques that should be integrated into you as general culture of computer security since many of them are basic and prevent attacks against your security.

• Update your operating system: Having the latest available version of the operating system will be a good risk prevention technique since companies are aware of these techniques and are adding security layers to each update.
• turn off bluetooth: Of course, if we already know that BlueSnarfing is based on violating your security through Bluetooth wireless connectivity, disable it. This way there will be no problem. Activate it only when you need it. Be careful in busy areas such as airports or stations. We recommend that if you carry smartwatch devices and others that require Bluetooth connectivity, you deactivate them during that time. Like Wi-Fi and public networks, they are also dangerous.
• Do not accept Bluetooth connection requests: As we have already explained what BlueSnarfing is, you will see this measure as very logical, but be careful since if you are mistaken, they will be able to access your mobile device. Only accept connections from known or close people who you know at that very moment are next to you and then deactivate Bluetooth as we told you in the previous tip.

These tips may be very specific to combat BlueSnarfing, that's why we leave you some articles on Tecnobits in which you can learn about good computer security practicesWithcomputer security in general so that you have its general concepts and even since we have talked about connectivity, How will 5G technology affect the development of information security? In case you still want to know more about what it is BlueSnarfing We leave you a link with more information.