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Key Takeaways
- Your wireless devices can be used to track you, and can be found by thieves using their wireless signals.
- Flipper Zero, a wireless hacking device, demonstrates the potential for cloning RFID cards, key fobs, and hacking unsecured wireless signals.
- The best way to protect yourself is to stay vigilant, and use the security features provided by your devices.
You are a trackable, hackable wireless beacon, thanks to the gadgets you carry. Your phone, Bluetooth earbuds, smartwatch, key fobs, and other Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi devices can all uniquely identify you and potentially be accessed. So, is this a realistic threat, and what can you do about it?
What Risks Do Your Wireless Devices Actually Pose?
Currently, the risk is low and most meaningful hacks require expertise, planning, and proximity, but the wireless future does present new, realistic threats.
The main risk that your wireless gadgets presently pose to you is tracking. Bus stops, digital advertisements, shops, and even electronic bins all track you by the unique wireless signature your phone emits. This is used mostly to try and target you with ads, but it doesn’t take much imagination to think of other, more nefarious, applications.
Thieves have also been caught tracking Bluetooth signals to figure out which cars in a parking lot contain laptops or tablets that they can steal. Cars themselves have also been stolen using inventive wireless hacks that find and amplify the signal from wireless key fobs (even through the walls of a house!).
Moving into science fiction territory, there are valid concerns that medical devices that do not implement proper security measures could be hacked to cause actual harm to people. Such devices include pacemakers, insulin pumps, and defibrillators.
Flipper Zero: A Peek at the Future of Wireless Hacking
On its surface, Flipper Zero is a friendly-looking little gadget resembling a game console, but inside is a powerful tool for exploring the invisible wireless world that surrounds us. Intended as a geek gadget for learning, hackers have so far been able to clone RFID cards, magnetic swipe cards, infrared signals, and key fobs.
This can all be done in passing, with a quick swipe of the device over your wallet sitting on a café counter, or your keys hanging from the back of your belt. If there’s an unsecured wireless signal, Flipper Zero can potentially sniff it out, and record, clone, or interact with it.
How to Protect Yourself
So how can you protect yourself from these high-tech attacks? The answers are actually pretty low-tech.
Vigilance is the first and best protection. Avoid leaving your wallet sitting on the bar while you chat to your friends. Don’t leave your key fobs and entry cards where they can be easily accessed, and don’t leave your devices unattended in your car (and if you do, power them down completely so they don’t emit a traceable signal).
If you want physical protection, metal blocks wireless signals (hence the old tin foil hat trope). Car owners are protecting the signal from their key fobs by keeping car keys in a coffee tin, while there are signal blocking travel accessories ranging in size from wallets to backpacks.
When it comes to your phone, however, your options are limited. If you block your phone’s wireless signal, your phone will stop working as it won’t be able to access the mobile network. You can shut off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC individually when you’re not using them, which may reduce your attack surface
Ironically, the best way to protect mobile devices is to embrace the wireless future, and enable Apple’s Find My functionality or Android’s Find My Device so that if your phone does go missing, you can remotely wipe it.
