Chapter 15
RTLS Vulnerabilities
In This Chapter
Knowing your security threats
Understanding the available countermeasures
Catching attacks
Looking at some real-world examples
An RTLS, by nature of the silent and invisible technology character that enables real-time locating of assets or people over the air, introduces unique challenges to security. What’s accessible to an RTLS is potentially accessible to malicious hackers.
Any device implementing the same air interface can potentially access or jam the network. Attacks aren’t limited by location or distance. For example, Bluetooth attack tools are known to have several-mile radii, although valid usage scenarios would never attempt such coverage range for Bluetooth.
This chapter provides you with knowledge of the security challenges in an RTLS as well as strategies to counter them.
Evaluating Security Threats
An effective security strategy requires ensuring high availability, integrity trust, and confidentiality. With respect to an RTLS, some of the risks are similar to those of any products, some are exacerbated by wireless connectivity, and some are new.
The heart of the security problem in any RTLS is that the tags aren’t tethered with wires. The tags are small and carried by people or attached to assets, and the location sensors or the location engine can locate them with airborne techniques or protocols.
The very ease and ...
