Analysis of Bluetooth protocol security

Abstract

This manuscript describes the analysis of the Bluetooth protocol for known and possible security flaws, and proposes possible solutions to resolve the flaws. The proposed solutions that this manuscript presents are targeted towards the application layer for two reasons. The first is that as of 2008 over two billion Bluetooth devices have been sold. This means that the Bluetooth protocol is already well used, and solutions that require modification of the protocol or hardware will only protect future Bluetooth devices. The second reason the proposed solutions are targeted at the application layer is that not all applications that use Bluetooth require the level of security that is expected in this manuscript. The manuscript also goes on to validate two of the proposed solutions using a proof-of-concept method and using a formal proof.