Communication Between Paired Android Smartphones and Smartwatches is Easy to Crack

Smartwatches are also smart mobile devices and they can send or receive a great deal of critical information. Security experts from Bitdefender recently showed us just how vulnerable encrypted data communication between Android Smartphones and their paired wearables is. Apparently, the data streams can be cracked open by digital criminals and eventually laid bare open for any prying eyes to see.

Without too much effort, attackers can decode and intercept secure data, such as Facebook conversations, Google Hangout chats and standard text messages. A video that shows the proof-of-concept of the attacks has been published. Mobile devices involved in this test include the Google Nexus 4 with Android 5.0 Lollipop and Samsung Gear Live Smartwatch.

The Bluetooth communication between these Android devices requires only a 6-digit code. Unfortunately, such a basic encryption method is quite easy to defeat. Security experts simply used a brute-force technique, which is available in many sniffing tools. They don’t need any custom-built tools. Anyone with basic knowledge in cracking digital information may be able to pull this off with a bit of patience. It is only about looking for the right data streams in the right locations. NFC connections that employ paraphrases should be more difficult to crack using similar brute-force techniques.