Posted on 09/12/2017 5:45:06 PM PDT by Swordmaker
The only two places I let my phone do an auto-hook are at home and in the car - too many folks opt for “convenience” of hooking to the best signal available that doesn’t require a password.
Correct, which is why most people enable bluetooth when they need it, and disable it when they don't.
Can't let that get in the way of a good exploit though!
I checked and I actually can turn off the bluetooth on my phone.
So I did.
I don’t connect it to anything but my car anyway and I don’t always use it even then so it’s not an issue.
Turn Bluetooth on before you get into the car and I really think you will be OK and can still get phone calls on your car while driving. I frankly think your likelihood of encountering this malware is extremely slim.
Well, by turning it off, it’ll reduce the risk no?
But I certainly am not going to lose any sleep over it.
FWIW, I don’t have any personal info stored on my little dumb phone anyway.
Thank you.
Most indubitably. Just as if you cut off your leg, you can't break that leg. Most people who say they don't have any personal information stored in their phones don't realize how much they actually DO have stored in their phones. They have all their friends' phone numbers and possibly their addresses and most likely they have those friends' email addresses. Often, that is all the hackers are after.
The good news is that a dumb phone can't load apps that will access things outside of their own self-contained, programed functions. Nor can a "virus" or Trojan horse App be side-loaded on such a phone from a spurious source other than by the carrier's own store. That makes them absolutely safe. The BlueBorne's danger was that it apparently could use the small amount of memory in the Bluetooth's dedicated circuitry to hide a small bit of malicious code, but I sincerely doubt that code could ever be used by a dumb phone to be sent to another device. I am not sure whether another device could download that malicious code FROM that dumb phone, though, as part of the handshaking while connecting. I really doubt it.
All I have is phone numbers.
No email addresses or home addresses.
Not then to worry. I think you are OK even leaving it on. Your car is more likely to be hacked by a drive-by hacker than your flip phone.
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