Analysis of Bluetooth threats and v4.0 security features

The advent of Bluetooth technology has made wireless communication easier. Any new invention or improvement is viewed very closely by people who are looking to gain information in an unauthorized manner. Security in any area is given more importance as it leads to better product and satisfied customers. The initial days of any technological invention is more challenging as they deal with new issues every day. The product/invention needs to keep evolving to address the growing list of new features requirement and handling of security issues. Bluetooth security has evolved a lot with different versions of blue tooth. Keeping in mind the growing list of Bluetooth products in the market, there has been lot of improvements done in the version 4.0 of Bluetooth. The LE (Low Energy) operational mode which is new in version 4.0 has slightly different security association models. In this paper, a review of the recent studies in the analysis of Bluetooth security issues and new security features of v4.0 is done. Specifically the paper covers secure simple pairing in Bluetooth normal mode and low energy mode. For each threat, the particular issues are addressed and a review of major approaches to improve security of Bluetooth communication using secure simple pairing is discussed.