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The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is dismissing security fears about the technology, saying any flaws in it are limited to a small number of mobile phones?although it has detailed measures that concerned users can take to secure a wide range of Bluetooth devices.

Bluetooth is primarily a short-range wireless technology that operates in the same 2.4-GHz frequency band as wireless LANs. It’s used as cordless replacement to connect a wide range of devices, such as mobile phones, to each other in a process known as “pairing” and can also serve as the link between a phone or handheld computer and Bluetooth wireless printers.

Mike McCamon, marketing director of the Bluetooth SIG in Overland Park, Kan., said during a news briefing yesterday that Bluetooth device shipments have now hit 1 million per week and that any security problems with the wireless technology security problems are limited to a handful of phones manufactured by Nokia Corp. and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB.

Those phones, which include Sony Ericsson’s R520m and T68i phones and Nokia’s 6310, 6310i, 8910 and 8910i phones, are susceptible to a hacking technique known as “bluesnarfing,” according to Nick Hunn, a Bluetooth security expert and sales managing director at TDK Systems Europe Ltd. in London. Flaws in these phones can allow hackers to access data such as information stored in address books or calendars, he said.

from [url=http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/technology/story/0,10801,93066,00.html?f=x596]ComputerWorld[/url]