Security researchers at Armis, the security research company that had originally discovered the exploit, have identified the eight vulnerabilities — which have been collectively named as “BlueBorne”. It is expected that this set of vulnerabilities in the Bluetooth radio implementation almost certainly affects over 5.3 billion devices.
The researchers went on to say the vulnerabilities are undetectable and therefore unstoppable by traditional security solutions. For me, the scariest part is that no user interaction is needed for an attacker to use the BlueBorne flaws against you, nor does the attacker need to pair with a targeted device to begin compromising it.
The Bluetooth implementations in Android, iOS, Microsoft, and Linux are all affected, and extends to almost all Bluetooth device types ranging from smartphones to laptops, and from IoT devices to smart cars.
Three of these eight security flaws are rated critical, and allow attackers to take over devices and execute malicious code, or to run Man-in-the-Middle attacks and intercept Bluetooth communications.
I would highly recommend that you download the “BlueBorne” Vulnerability checker on each of your devices to verify that you are indeed affected.
If you are affected like I am, then the only real option is to disable your Bluetooth radio until it’s safe to operate under normal conditions.
If you need to use a BT connection on your device, then only enable it as long as is absolutely needed and then re-disable the BT radio.
If you’d like to read more about the BlueBorne Vulnerabilities, you can read more about it at the Armis website here.