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"Bluetooth hacks are still in their infancy and not so practical"

by Staff Writer | posted on 04 August 2006

You've heard of "Blue Man"? Now meet Blue Bag: a hacking tool using Bluetooth.

The trick isn't a major threat, and the Inforworld report from the Black Hat seminar in Las Vegas doesn't pretend it is. Mostly, says Paul Roberts, Bluetooth hacks work because people are asked to do stupid things.

According to Stefano Zanero of Secure Network S.r.l in Italy and his colleagues Claudio Merloni and Luca Carettoni, when Zanero tried a "stupidity" test using Blue Bag, "fully 70% of people who were promoted to download the attachment from an unknown source did so."

Other wireless hacks demonstrated included a Mac hack. No names, said the demonstrator, showing video: a flaw in a device driver for a wireless LAN card allowed a takeover of a MacBook. The reason the guilty aren't being exposed: they're giving the driver writer a chance to patch the firmware.

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