The Daily Dot:
A new study of the leading fitness trackers on the market found that most of these devices leak your data to a far wider audience than you might imagine—and, in some cases, allow others to alter your information.
The study found that, in every case save for the Apple device, the wearables emitted a unique Bluetooth identifier that allowed a third-party to track the device’s movement over time if the device was not actively paired with another device.
The researchers did not find any security holes in Apple’s signature wearable.
This will only get worse. As the Internet of Things becomes more prevalent, it will become even more obvious that security of our data is, at best, a secondary issue to many manufacturers. It becomes of even greater concern as our devices start to collect significant health data.
how secure are our phones themselves? With Bluetooth and wifi on, are most mobiles not traceable in a similar way? If I recall iPhones randomise their MAC address when not attached to a wifi network to avoid this risk.
Remarkable, but hardly surprising.
The study found that, in every case save for the Apple device, the
wearables emitted a unique Bluetooth identifier that allowed a
third-party to track the device’s movement over time if the device was
not actively paired with another device.
Yeah. Someone with a high-gain Bluetooth antenna who’s following you can track you.
Horror!