Enterprise Security: Major Flaws Found in Bluetooth Chips

Security firm Armis has discovered two vulnerabilities in Bluetooth Chips from several networking industry leaders.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Nov 05, 2018

Two serious chip-level vulnerabilities that could potentially put "millions" of enterprise access points at risk was discovered last week by researchers at security firm Armis. The security flaws could allow hackers to gain access to networks completely undetected. 

The vulnerabilities have been named "Bleeding Bit" and involves the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chips used in enterprise wireless access points from several networking industry leaders that account for 70 percent of the market. 

The vulnerabilities can pose two significant problems, the first applies specifically to two chip models used in access points manufactured by Cisco and Meraki, while the second vulnerability affects devices made by Aruba. 

Armis called the vulnerabilities "Bleeding Bit" because the first bug involves "flipping the highest bit in a Bluetooth packet that will cause its memory to overflow—or bleed—which an attacker can then use to run malicious code on an affected Cisco or Meraki hardware," according to TechCrunch. 

The second flaw allows an attacker to install the malicious firmware on Aruba's devices because, according to TechCrunch, the software does not check to see if it is a trusted update or not.

While it is unknown if a potential attacker would ever use these flaws to exploit an enterprise, Armis CEO said in a statement that "Bleeding Bit" should serve as a wakeup call to enterprise security—especially since the vulnerabilities allow a hacker to slide in undetected.