Stop Leaving Your Smartphone's Bluetooth On

If you always leave Bluetooth on your phone on, you might want to rethink things.

A vulnerability known as BlueBorne was discovered this week by security research firm Armis. With it, researchers were able to infiltrate Samsung Galaxy Phones and the Google Pixel as well as an LG Sports Watch and a car audio system, all by exploiting the Bluetooth connection.

We got to see something cool and terrible (yes, it's possible to be both at the same time) earlier this week when Armis Security published the details of a new Bluetooth exploit. Called "Blueborne," the exploit allows a person with the right tools and who is within Bluetooth range of your smart thing — laptop, phone, car, or anything else that runs Android (as well as most every other operating systems, including iOS and Windows) — to gain control over the device without any action from the user.

Other devices are also vulnerable. Specifically, iPhones and iPads that haven't been upgraded to iOS 10, as well as a number of other Android, Microsoft and Linux products. A BlueBorne attack reportedly only takes 10 seconds to do and can give a hacker control of your Bluetooth-enabled device, even if it isn't connected to anything when the attack begins.

Google and Microsoft put out security patches to get rid of the vulnerability this week. If you haven't updated your phone in the past few days, you should go ahead and do that right now. No really, do it now.

The issue brings up a much bigger problem: you shouldn't be leaving your Bluetooth on in the first place.

Wired notes that when you leave Bluetooth on, it's constantly open to and waiting for other devices to connect to. That's great when you want to sync your Fitbit or listen to some jams on your wireless headphones, but that also means that your device is constantly available for nefarious things to try and connect to it as well.

Sure, use it to connect to your headphones or car. But if you're not using it, you should power the feature off.

The way BlueBorne works, it constantly scans for devices that have Bluetooth on, and when it finds one that has relevant vulnerabilities, it can hack into the device exceptionally quickly. Once connected, hackers can take control of the device and even steal data from it.

WARNING: Terrifying virus can take over BILLIONS of phones, here’s how to stop it

Security experts have warned of a new virus spread over Bluetooth that can take over a smartphone - and affects almost 5.3 BILLION devices worldwide.

The BlueBorne virus takes advantage of a series of vulnerabilities affecting devices connected via Bluetooth.

The security holes let attackers take control of Bluetooth-enabled gadgets, executes code on them remotely and intercepts traffic between devices.

Gadgets affected are unpatched devices running Android, Windows and Linux as well as earlier versions of iOS, according to security research firm Armis.

The threat is dubbed BlueBorne because it spreads airborne via Bluetooth.

Researchers envisioned one worst-case scenario where a delivery person enters a bank with an infected smartphone that has Bluetooth enabled.

BlueBorne would then be able to spread to any Bluetooth enabled devices, bouncing from one to another and even onto the bank’s computers.

The attack would not require victims to click on links or download infected files or to ‘pair’ with other devices to work.

They would simply need to have Bluetooth enabled for BlueBorne to spread at an alarmingly fast and wide rate.

The victims would be completely unaware their devices were infected, and victims would then be at risk from ransomware attacks or viruses that compromise security systems.

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