Unveiling New Attack Vectors in Bluetooth Vulnerability Discovery through Protocol State Machine

Unveiling New Attack Vectors in Bluetooth Vulnerability Discovery through Protocol State Machine

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State Manipulation: Unveiling New Attack Vectors in Bluetooth Vulnerability Discovery through Protocol State Machine Reconfiguration

The Bluetooth protocol has become ubiquitous, supporting a wide range of devices from personal gadgets like headphones and smartphones to complex systems in automotive and IoT environments. While Bluetooth’s flexibility and performance have been thoroughly validated, an overlooked attack surface exists within the protocol’s underlying state machines.

This study uncovers Bluetooth vulnerabilities by analyzing state machine mechanisms in various applications, including automotive and mobile devices. Unlike prior research, which primarily focuses on traditional Bluetooth security issues—such as buffer overflows or crashes triggered by malformed packets in the protocol’s Type-Length-Value (TLV) structure—our work delves into the complexities of state machine interactions among supported profiles within the protocol stack. By carefully examining state machine sequences and their interdependencies, we attempt to break the standard execution order and reconfigure protocol interaction states, thereby opening a new path for Bluetooth protocol vulnerability discovery.

Since state machine-based vulnerabilities often do not produce visible logs or crash data, they frequently evade detection. We will provide in-depth insights into techniques for manipulating Bluetooth state machine interactions, focusing on systematic methods for discovering these vulnerabilities and assessing their impact on the Bluetooth ecosystem.

By:
Lidong Li | Chief Security Officer, SouceGuard
Oliver Dong | CEO, SouceGuard
Xiao Wang | Senior Security Researcher, SouceGuard
Lewei Qu | Security Architect, Bytedance

Full Abstract and Presentation Materials:
https://www.blackhat.com/asia-25/briefings/schedule/#state-manipulation-unveiling-new-attack-vectors-in-bluetooth-vulnerability-discovery-through-protocol-state-machine-reconfiguration-43736Black HatRead More