Are you turning off Bluetooth on your iPhone? An experiment showed that the phone still continued to communicate with other devices. A misleading deactivation that poses a real security problem.
Since the deployment of iOS 11 several years ago, it is no longer possible to deactivate Bluetooth or Wi-Fi with a simple swipe from the control panel, and thus switch to safe from any intrusive connection. Finally, yes, but it only disables some of the Bluetooth functions, not all of them. The control panel only allows, in a way, a partial deactivation, a disconnection of all the devices using these options, such as the box, a connected speaker or headphones. The network remains active in the background, without being used. To actually stop all communications from your iPhone with other devices, you need to go through the settings.
Apple justifies this by the fact that, when Bluetooth is completely deactivated from the settings of the iPhone, functions such as AirDrop, AirPlay or Find My stop working. iPhone can no longer communicate with other Apple devices, such as your Apple Watch, AirPods, Pencil, etc. The problem is that when Bluetooth is not completely disabled, malicious people can take advantage of it to communicate with your iPhone. In short, it is the door open to proximity attacks.
Bluetooth on iPhone: a deactivation that is misleading to say the least
This problem has been known for a long time, but it is coming to the fore again following an experiment by security researcher Jae Bochs, as reported TechCrunch. During Def Con, the annual conference dedicated to hackers held in Las Vegas from August 10 to 13, this one walked through the aisles with a strange device – cobbled together from a simple Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, a Bluetooth adapter and a battery, all for $70 – which pretended to be Apple’s device and sent personalized fake alerts to iPhones within a fifteen-meter radius. These prompted users to connect with a nearby Apple TV, entering their Apple IDs and passwords. They saw nothing but fire! In short, it’s the perfect way for malicious people to recover valuable personal information – which the researcher obviously did not do.
Jae Bochs believes that the company will not change this operation, the control center having “was designed this way, so that watches and earphones continue to work with Bluetooth enabled“. However, the firm at the apple should warn iPhone owners when they deactivate Bluetooth from the control center. This way they will know that when they go through the control panel, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are not completely disabled and their phone can still interact with other devices. Users who really want to be shielded from all communication will know that they have to go through their iPhone’s iOS settings. And in addition, it would allow them to save a little battery!