iOS and macOS have a very serious problem announced today for users around the world, and we are talking about a warning that all iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch owners must be aware of.
According to some IT security experts, the Bluetooth communication system has a vulnerability that allows the tracking and identification of Apple and Microsoft products.
Android phones are not affected by this problem, but Apple and Microsoft phones are because they use public Bluetooth channels to allow other Bluetooth devices to connect to them, and that's where the problem comes from.
"We present an online algorithm called the address-carryover algorithm, which exploits the fact that identifying tokens and the random address do not change in sync, to continuously track a device despite implementing anonymization measures. To our knowledge, this approach affects all Windows 10, iOS, and macOS devices. iOS or macOS devices have two identifying tokens (nearby, handoff) which change in different intervals. In many cases, the values of the identifying tokens change in sync with the address. However, in some cases the token change does not happen at the same moment, which allows the carry-over algorithm to identify the next random address."
The products transmit a random address to other Bluetooth devices, this being changed periodically, but it seems that even in this situation they can be identified, if they are Apple's or Microsoft's.
After identification, the products can be constantly monitored via Bluetooth, and can even be tracked, information about the users' activity also being retrieved without them knowing, and of course the problems will be solved someday, just that we don't know when.
