UWB Real Time Locating Systems: How Secure Radio Communications May Fail in Practice
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Presented at BlackHat USA 2022 by
Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a rapidly-growing radio technology that, according to the UWB Alliance, is forecasted to drive sales volumes exceeding one billion devices annually by 2025. Among its current applications, off-the-shelf Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) employ UWB to provide localization solutions for a wide set of use cases (i.e., medical patients location tracking, safety geofencing, asset monitoring, contact tracing, etc.).The security of UWB wireless communications has recently been strengthened by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.4z amendment. However, critical phases of the RTLS process are handled by obscure network protocols that are not regulated by standards, leaving the responsibility for their design and implementation to the vendors.In an effort to strengthen the security of devices utilizing UWB, Nozomi Networks Labs conducted a security assessment of two popular UWB RTLS solutions available on the market. Our research reveals 0-day vulnerabilities and other weaknesses that, if exploited, could allow an attacker to gain full access to all sensitive location data exchanged over-the-air.In this presentation, we will demonstrate how an attacker may exploit RTLS to locate and target people, hinder safety geofencing rules, and interfere with contact tracing, as well as present key actions to help mitigate these weaknesses to secure UWB RTLS from potential cyber attacks.