Data Sent Between Smartwatch And Smartphone Might Not Be Secure

A lot of smartwatches tend to sync with smartphones. This is required as notifications from the smartphone are sent to the smartwatch, and data collected from the smartwatch, such as biometrics and health data, are sent back to the smartphone where it is then recorded in your accompanying fitness app.

Well if you’re particularly concerned about your personal data being intercepted, you might be a bit worried to find out that it turns out that the data sent between a smartphone and a smartwatch might not be too secure after all and could be subject to brute force hacks to intercept said data. This is according to security firm Bitdefender who tried it out themselves.

The researchers ran a proof-of-concept hack against the Samsung Gear Live and the Nexus 4 handset. Only using tools available at the moment, the researchers discovered that they were able to brute force their way past the PIN obfuscating the Bluetooth connected between both devices. After doing so, the data moving back and forth between devices could be easily monitored.

Considering that smartwatches and wearables are booming at the moment, this new discovery is particularly important, not to mention the renewed emphasis placed on privacy these days. Hopefully smartwatch and smartphone OEMs will take this into account and come up with a solution that will make data transfers between either device more secure.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones, Gadgets
Tags: Hacking, Security, Smartwatch, Wearable Tech