Bluetooth communications are Secure

One goal for Bluetooth wireless communication is to enable security at least as good as that provided by typical cables because a primary application of Bluetooth technology is cable replacement. Toward that end, the SIG has specified several security measures that may be employed in various situations, and the Bluetooth profiles suggest when these security measures might be or should be employed in certain usage scenarios.

Specifically, Bluetooth communications can be encrypted over the air—interface and authentication measures are built in to the communications establishment process. The frequency-hopping nature of Bluetooth spread spectrum communication itself offers a degree of protection against eavesdropping because only receivers that know the frequency-hopping pattern can correctly interpret the packets. Some of the higher layers of the protocol stack also include their own security measures, and application developers are free to incorporate even more robust security at the application layer, if deemed necessary. Security is rightly a concern of many device end users, especially in the wireless realm, and the SIG recognizes this and has developed a specification and a white paper (both available at http://www.bluetooth.com/) that address security at some length.