What is Blue Jacking?
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Know Bluetooth Technology:
Bluetooth is a wireless networking standard created for personal area networks (PANs). Is was founded in 1994,as wireless data transmission technology using radio transmissions.Bluetooth is a cable replacement technology.
Bluetooth is an IEEE standard under the denomination of 802.15 WPANs. Bluetooth provides cheap connection between two or more devices.Bluetooth has a short range of approximately 10 meters up to 25 meters.Bluetooth offers low speeds of approximately 1Mbps.
What is Blue Jacking:
Blue jacking exploits a Bluetooth device’s ability to discover other nearby devices to send unsolicited messages.The unsolicited message is then displayed on the victim’s device, potentially causing confusion or at least annoyance. Actually blue jacking allows individ
uals to send business cards anonymously using Bluetooth wireless technology. Bluejacking does not involve the removal or alteration of any data from the device. These business cards often have a clever or flirtatious message.
Features of Blue Jacking:
- Bluejacking does not involve the removal or alteration of any data from the device.
- A bluejacker normally send only a text message, but now it has now become possible to send images or sounds also.
- Bluejacking exploits a Bluetooth device’s ability to discover other nearby Bluetooth devices.
How to Blue Jacking Done:
It is done with the help of OBEX protocol.
To choose the recipients of bluejacks, senders complete a scan using their mobile phones to search for the available Bluetooth-enabled devices in the immediate area.
A bluejacker then picks one of the various available devices (that have their Bluetooth on), composes a message within the body of the phone’s contact interface, then sends the message to the receiver and stays close to the receiver to observe any reactions expressed by the person.
The message is sent via vCard functionality. It has a name field for bluedating or bluechat to another Bluetooth enabled device.
It also allows phone users to send business cards secretly using Bluetooth. These business cards can even contain clever or flirtatious messages instead of simply the phone number and name.
Bluejackers look for the receiving phone to ping or to react.
Fig. 1 how the sender sends the bluejack message
Fig. 2 what does receiver sees on the screen as it receives the bluejack message
Advantages of Blue jacking:
- Usually, a bluejacker will only send a text message, but with modern phones it’s possible to send images or sounds as well.
- We can easily transfer data from mobile to laptop or from mobile to mobile in a short period.
- We can even enjoy music by wireless headphones through Bluejacking.
Disadvantages of Blue jacking:
- Increase in the availability of Bluetooth enabled devices, these devices have become vulnerable to virus attacks and even complete takeover of devices through a Trojan horse program.
- These may even cause irritation in any person as these are just unwelcomed messages or some jokes.
- They can annoy anyone very easily.
Usages of Blue Jacking:
It can be used in malls for advertisement purposes. As you cross their shop, you can get a message or any latest scheme they are providing on that day, etc.
They can be used at railway station to give you information about various general rules and about train timings, etc. Someone can even annoy you by sending useless messages. So, it is advisable to keep it off at these public places.
It can also be used at café, restaurant, cinema, mobile phone shop or at any electronic shop to provide you various information regarding them but any other random person can also send you the Bluejack messages and hence can even annoy you.
How to prevent yourself from Blue Jackers:
Phone owners who receive bluejack messages should refuse to add the contacts to their address book. This means they must be fully ignored.
Devices could be set in the non-discoverable, hidden or invisible mode in the menu. They are not prone to bluejacking.
You can turning off your Bluetooth device off at certain public areas like various shopping centers, coffee shops, movie theaters, bars and clubs, public transport vehicles, phone, at various electronic stores and even in parks.
Awadhesh Kumar