Bluesnarfing

Bluesnarfing is a term that is used to describe the unauthorised access of information from a wireless device through a Bluetooth connection, often between mobile phones, laptops, desktops and PDAs. This allows unauthorised access to the victim's emails, text messages, contact list and calendar, and on some mobiles, users can steal private photos and videos. Bluesnarfing therefore exploits other people's Bluetooth connections without their knowledge. Because it is an invasion of privacy, Bluesnarfing is illegal in many countries.

Before content can be copied from a mobile phone, the bluetooth connection must be manually accepted and the phone 'paired' to another phone. Any device that has its Bluetooth connection turned on and set to "discoverable" (which means that it is able to be found by other Bluetooth devices in range) may possibly be susceptible to Bluesnarfing. By turning off this feature, the potential victim can be safer from the possibility of being 'Bluesnarfed'. However, a device that is set to "hidden" may be Bluesnarfable by using technology that guesses the device's MAC address via brute force. Luckily, Bluetooth uses a 48-bit unique MAC Address, which means that there are over 280 trillion possible addresses to guess.

It is important not to confuse Bluesnarfing with Bluejacking; whilst Bluejacking does not result in the exposure of any data in the victim's handset and is essentially harmless, Bluesnarfing is the theft of information from the victim's Bluetooth device.