Security and Privacy of Wireless Beacon Systems

TL;DR

This paper examines the security and privacy challenges of BLE beacon systems used in smart city applications, analyzing attack types, adversary motives, and potential defenses to improve their protection.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive characterization of attacks on beacon systems, aiding in security evaluation and development of defense mechanisms.

Findings

Beacon systems face various security threats and privacy issues.

Understanding attack vectors helps in designing better defenses.

The paper offers insights into adversary capabilities and motives.

Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons have been increasingly used in smart city applications, such as location-based and proximity-based services, to enable Internet of Things to interact with people in vicinity or enhance context-awareness. Their widespread deployment in human-centric applications makes them an attractive target to adversaries for social or economic reasons. In fact, beacons are reportedly exposed to various security issues and privacy concerns. A characterization of attacks against beacon systems is given to help understand adversary motives, required adversarial capabilities, potential impact and possible defence mechanisms for different threats, with a view to facilitating security evaluation and protection formulation for beacon systems.