On Secure Simple Pairing in Bluetooth Standard v5.0-Part I: Authenticated Link Key Security and Its Home Automation and Entertainment Applications

Abstract

Bluetooth is an important technical standard for short-range and low-power wireless communication. The home automation and entertainment (HAE) systems often make use of Bluetooth technology to link different Bluetooth devices and form Bluetooth networks. The security concerns of the HAE systems are raised due to massive deployment of the Bluetooth devices. The Bluetooth standard mainly depends on the secure simple pairing (SSP) solution to protect the Bluetooth devices. Hence, we investigate the SSP solution according to the Bluetooth standard v5.0. The contributions are threefold. (1) A formal security model is proposed to evaluate SSP’s association models and authenticated link key. (2) We formally analyze two SSP protocols and present the security requirements for basic cryptographic modules in these SSP protocols. (3) We discuss the typical SSP applications in the HAE systems. Our results are useful to not only evaluating and designing the SSP protocols but also enhancing the security of the HAE systems in which the Bluetooth access is available.

Keywords

• Bluetooth standard
• Secure simple pairing
• Cryptographic protocol
• Security model
• Authenticated link key
• Home automation and entertainment