Always on, always exposed: survey on Bluetooth risks in wearable devices
Hardik Kumar, Hetal Bhaidasna, Kajol Patel · IET conference proceedings. · 2025
The rapid adoption of Bluetooth technology in wearable devices has created a paradigm shift in personal interactions with digital systems, mostly in the fields of health care, fitness, and personal monitoring. Although these innovative gadgets provide seamless connectivity and convenience to the end user, they, however, bring with them serious security and privacy problems. Bluetooth, as a mainstream communication protocol, is fraught with several security vulnerabilities including eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, device spoofing, and unauthorized access. These threats become very pertinent when considering the sensitive data that wearables deal with such as health indicators, movement patterns, and location information. A breach in this ecosystem can present a likelihood of significant personal, financial, and even physical harm. This investigation attempts to provide an overview of the security landscape of Bluetooth-enabled wearable devices, with an in-depth analysis of existing key vulnerabilities, complete with some known exploits and their attendant ramifications on user safety and privacy. Furthermore, known possible mitigations and countermeasures are reviewed, while expressing the view that more tailor-made and context-aware security frameworks are necessary. With the ever-increasing adoption of wearable technologies, it is important to tighten the screws on Bluetooth security protocols and provide more protection on the device. It is to be emphasized that critical innovations and having practiced standards will ensure safe and reliable use of wearable systems in an increasingly connected world.