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Newtons Apple

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Original poster
Mar 12, 2014
22,757
15,254
Jacksonville, Florida
Sure most of you have heard about the hack to get into your phone via Bluetooth.

My Apple Watch would be somewhat useless with out BT.

Just wondering if other fear getting hacked to the point of turning BT off.

Hope they fix the vulnerability soon.
 
Only when not in use. I've gone virtually cord-free and use BT audio adapters in my vehicles, BT headphones, BT speaker and a wireless printer. That said, I do turn it off at night and anytime I'm not listening to music. I also don't own an Apple Watch (yet).
 
Only when not in use. I've gone virtually cord-free and use BT audio adapters in my vehicles, BT headphones, BT speaker and a wireless printer. That said, I do turn it off at night and anytime I'm not listening to music. I also don't own an Apple Watch (yet).

I am just like you and BT does too many things for me. Only time I would feel ok about turning it off is when it is charging at night.

Let’s hope they get the fix out soon.
 
The only reason I use BT on any iDevice I own is for headphones and that's rare because I usually use wired EarPods.

So it's off.

Does this new bug affect devices on iOS 9?
 
Does this new bug affect devices on iOS 9?

Unknown, but in theory, affects anything with Bluetooth.

However, it's a vulnerability that is hard to exploit. If I recall correctly, need to be within 30ft of two devices that are going through the pairing process, and the devices are negotiating a one-byte key, and then need to guess the one-byte key, and then inject an "ok" packet to both devices, and then, if doing something simple like playing music, bad guy will only get music. It's when you have something like hand-free in the car where something like your address book might be syncing. But then again, the bad guy needs to be within 30ft, and have the gear to tap into the data stream, but won't be able to hack the phone and scrape data off it, or inject malware.

Oh and: mine is on, as only use BT for audio (car is not fancy enough to have a in-dash display).
 
Last edited:
Does this new bug affect devices on iOS 9?

Sorry for another post on this: did not want it to get lost in previous post.

According to Apple, guessing anything that is not latest/greatest will be vulnerable.

iOS 12.4 Release Notes:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210346

Bluetooth

Available for: iPhone 5s and later, iPad Air and later, and iPod touch 6th generation and later

Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to intercept Bluetooth traffic (Key Negotiation of Bluetooth - KNOB)

Description: An input validation issue existed in Bluetooth. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2019-9506: Daniele Antonioli of SUTD, Singapore, Dr. Nils Ole Tippenhauer of CISPA, Germany, and Prof. Kasper Rasmussen of University of Oxford, England

And, latest Mac Security Update:

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT210348

Bluetooth

Available for: macOS Sierra 10.12.6, macOS Mojave 10.14.5, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6

Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to intercept Bluetooth traffic (Key Negotiation of Bluetooth - KNOB)

Description: An input validation issue existed in Bluetooth. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2019-9506: Daniele Antonioli of SUTD, Singapore, Dr. Nils Ole Tippenhauer of CISPA, Germany, and Prof. Kasper Rasmussen of University of Oxford, England
 
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Mine is turned off. I still use wired headsets as I find not having to charge them more convenient. My cars usb connection allows audio pass through so I don’t need it for that either.

Bluetooth has had plenty of vulnerabilities, this isn’t the first and won’t be the last.
 
On all the time, not close to other people for very long for them to hack me (see my avitar!) Need it for my watch, and blood pressure cuff.
 
It's not on unless I need it which is pretty seldom. After which it goes back off. So no hacking worries here.
 
I have BT off on my phone but on for my iPad (use Apple Pencil). As the iPad rarely leaves the house, I’m not too worried.
 
I always had it turned off since i never needed it. I had no bluetooth enabled devices. Yes, literally for the 6 last years since i use iPhone and iOS. But since i now use AirPods and other bluetooth earbuds for the last couple of months now (tired of broken cables) i just leave it enabled.
 
I use an Apple Watch, A Square reader to take payments, AirPods, and a Kevo so I need BT.

For the car I use wired CarPlay so no BT needed there.
 
Sure most of you have heard about the hack to get into your phone via Bluetooth.

My Apple Watch would be somewhat useless with out BT.

Just wondering if other fear getting hacked to the point of turning BT off.

Hope they fix the vulnerability soon.
Nope. I need blue tooth to start and get into my car lol.
 
Always on for me. Both paring with my fitness device and my uConnect console in my car.

I am not too terribly worried about that exploit. Usually Apple has a fix for it pretty quick-like.
 
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I always keep it on as I use BT all the time. I'm not worried at all about getting hacked.
 
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