Analyzing the Secure Simple Pairing in Bluetooth v4.0

Abstract

This paper analyzes the security of Bluetooth v4.0's Secure Simple Pairing (SSP) protocol, for both the Bluetooth Basic Rate / Enhanced Data Rate (BR/EDR) and Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) operational modes. Bluetooth v4.0 is the latest version of a wireless communication standard for low-speed and low-range data transfer among devices in a human's PAN. It allows increased network mobility among devices such as headsets, PDAs, wireless keyboards and mice. A pairing process is initiated when two devices desire to communicate, and this pairing needs to correctly authenticate devices so that a secret link key is established for secure communication. What is interesting is that device authentication relies on humans to communicate verification information between devices via a human-aided out-of-band channel. Bluetooth v4.0's SSP protocol is designed to offer security against passive eavesdropping and man-inthe-middle (MitM) attacks. We conduct the first known detailed analysis of SSP for all its MitM-secure models. We highlight some issues related to exchange of public keys and use of the passkey in its models and discuss how to treat them properly.

Man-in-the-middle attacks on Secure Simple Pairing in Bluetooth standard V5.0 and its countermeasure

“…The proposed MITM attacks exploit the falsification of information sent during the IO capabilities exchange and the fact that the security of SSP is likely to be limited by the capabilities of the least powerful or the least secure device type. Phan and Mingard [17] mainly analyzed the numeric comparison, passkey entry, and OOB association models using the MITM attacks, providing that one device is malicious. Barnickel et al [18] explored a MITM attack on the passkey entry association model, when the attacker prevents the pairing process to successfully complete and the user inputs the same passkey twice.…”

“…Under the home network environments, Bluetooth devices are identifiable and trustable, because they always belong to the home members. Since Phan-Mingard's MITM attack [17] uses the outside device, it is not regarded as a serious threat for SSP under the passkey entry association model. That is to say, the home member would be cautious, when he finds that the unfamiliar Bluetooth device tries to pair his Bluetooth Note that the home members are perhaps apt to sharing and reusing the passkey.…”

Use of Energy Efficient Sensor Networks to Enhance Dynamic Data Gathering Systems: A Comparative Study between Bluetooth and ZigBee

“…Considering all these aspects, a comparison between solutions needs to be performed. Although there are several papers dedicated to Bluetooth analysis (such as [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]), or ZigBee evaluation (such as [ 8 , 9 ]), very few compare these technologies (one probable cause may be that they were developed in the beginning for different purposes). ZigBee is an unusual choice for a vehicular communication protocol, or even communication between moving devices, but has great advantages from the power consumption point of view.…”

Digital Blues: An Investigation Into the Use of Bluetooth Protocols

“…The continued use of SSP in the Bluetooth protocol stack allows nearly all Bluetooth-enabled devices to remain vulnerable to MitM attacks, regardless of manufacturer or Bluetooth protocol version [40]. Phan and Mingard [25] demonstrated that the SSP protocol used in Bluetooth v4.0 (released 2010) is just as vulnerable to MitM attacks as it is in v2.1 (released 2007). These researchers were able to successfully replicate the attack methods utilized by Lindell [24] four years later.…”