Avoid the "blue" in Bluetooth

Bluetooth can connect your phone to your car so that you can use the car’s stereo system. But vulnerabilities expose users to crooks wanting to steal personally identifiable information (PII). The column also covers phone hacking, another popular method of stealing PII.

Elaine was an amateur photographer who enjoyed visiting countries throughout the world. When she traveled, she always rented cars. Two weeks after returning from a trip to China, she checked her bank account and found that her balance was wiped out. Her bank told her to track every transaction from her trip where she might have exposed her personally identifiable information (PII). Elaine checked her credit card and found no malicious activity. Then she remembered that she’d paired her portable Bluetooth device in her rental car, so the car’s system recorded everything on her phone, including account information from transactions she had made via a banking app on her phone. She forgot to delete data stored on the system before she returned the car. A future renter of the car then stole Elaine’s PII and drained her bank account dry.

Bluetooth connectivity a little too generous