Bluejacking

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Bluejacking Mean?

Bluejacking is a hacking method that allows an individual to send anonymous messages to Bluetooth-enabled devices within a certain radius. First, the hacker scans his surroundings with a Bluetooth-enabled device, searching for other devices. The hacker then sends an unsolicited message to the detected devices.

Advertisements

Bluejacking is also known as bluehacking.

Techopedia Explains Bluejacking

Bluejacking exploits a basic Bluetooth feature that allows devices to send messages to contacts within range.

Bluejacking does not involve device hijacking, despite what the name implies. The bluejacker may send only unsolicited messages. Hijacking does not actually occur because the attacker never has control of the victim’s device. At worst, bluejacking is an annoyance.

Bluesnarfing and bluebugging, however, are actual attacks that may result in a user losing control of his device. Although bluejacking, bluesnarfing and bluebugging use Bluetooth as the point of entry, bluesnarfing and bluebugging are far more harmful.

Bluejacking can be prevented by setting a device to hidden, invisible or non-discoverable mode.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.