Pairing and Authentication Security Technologies in Low-Power Bluetooth

With the release of up-to-date Low-Power (LP) bluetooth 4.0, Bluetooth Technologies are not only widely deployed on personal area devices such as the smart phone, the headset, the intelligent health-care equipment etc., but also are recommended as a standard communication protocol in the Internet of Things. However, due to the inherent limitation in the bluetooth protocol, the network designer must face critical vulnerabilities which might bring serious security issues. This paper describes the security features of the bluetooth 4.0 protocol and analyses pairing and authentication security technology in the LP bluetooth 4.0. The security vulnerabilities and security recommendations concerning to the pairing and authentication process of the bluetooth devices are presented. In the end, the countermeasures are proposed to mitigate the risk.