{"id":9226,"date":"2016-04-14T15:46:56","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T15:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/?p=9226"},"modified":"2016-04-14T15:46:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T15:46:56","slug":"eddystone-eid-frame-type-focuses-on-proximity-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/eddystone-eid-frame-type-focuses-on-proximity-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddystone-EID Frame Type Focuses On Proximity Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In July, Eddystone, an open beacon format from Google, was released with support for three frame types, Eddystone-UID, Eddystone-URL, and Eddystone-TLM. Due to the success and rapid adoption of these frame types, Google has now\u00a0released the technical specs on the fourth Eddystone frame type, Eddystone-EID. Eddystone-EID uses rotating ephemeral identifiers(EIDs) to broadcast a more secure beacon signal, which helps prevent spoofing, malicious asset tracking, replay attacks, or just unpermitted access. The main purpose of Eddystone-EID is to make beacons and proximity technology more secure.<\/p>\n<h4>What are the concerns regarding beacon security?<\/h4>\n<p>As mentioned above, there are a number of security concerns when deploying beacons. Eddystone-EID is a frame type that protects against each of these security concerns. Let\u2019s take a look at what each of those are below-<br \/>\n<strong>Spoofing<\/strong>&#8211; Spoofing a beacon allows someone to clone it, or in other words create a beacon with the same ID. When this happens, it allows someone else to take and send a beacon\u2019s signal in unattended places.<br \/>\nSpoofing example- A store entrance beacon that is triggering a welcome message could be copied by an attacker and replayed at the entrance to a train line. Consumers with the store app would receive the welcome message at the train entrance. Creating consumer annoyance and confusion.<br \/>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9228 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/dxjl3qy52c1o9.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/05211501\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-30-at-10.04.29-PM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 10.04.29 PM\" width=\"556\" height=\"306\" title=\"\"><br \/>\nWhile most spoofing would end up being relatively harmless, Make Magazine used spoofing to win a <a href=\"http:\/\/makezine.com\/2014\/01\/03\/hacking-the-ces-scavenger-hunt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">scavenger hunt at CES 2014<\/a> and they weren\u2019t even present.<br \/>\n<strong>Malicious asset tracking<\/strong>&#8211; Asset tracking allows beacons to assist staff to quickly and accurately locate assets without having to search for them. If someone were to hack a beacon that was tracking an asset, they would gain the location of that asset. This could be especially harmful when assets are being shipped from one location to another.<br \/>\nMalicious asset tracking example- If a company were to track the arrival of their shipments via beacons, then a malicious hacker would known when a shipment has arrived. Potentially allowing them to steal a shipment.<br \/>\n<strong>Replay attacks<\/strong>&#8211; A replay attack allows an adversary to eavesdrop on the traffic, which gives them access to the data being recorded on the beacon network.<br \/>\nReplay attack example- If beacons in a retail environment were subject to a replay attack, an adversary would be able to see the interactions taking place with the beacon, giving them access to valuable consumer data.<\/p>\n<h4>How does Eddystone-EID prevent these from happening?<\/h4>\n<p>Eddystone-EID takes advantage of something called rotating ephemeral identifiers(EIDs). In simple terms, the EID will rotate every broadcast with a different unique identifier. To anybody trying to track a beacon broadcasting with Eddystone-EID, the broadcast will appear random. This makes it where the beacon cannot be tracked\/spoofed. Since you are the only one who can see each of your beacon\u2019s broadcasts, this makes your beacons much more secure.<\/p>\n<h4>Eddystone-EID opens up opportunity for more proximity campaigns<\/h4>\n<p>Security is a major concern for many adopters of beacons and the IoT in general. According to Jim Hunter from <a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2015\/09\/05\/the-hierarchy-of-iot-thing-needs\/?ncid=rss&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&amp;utm_content=FaceBook&amp;sr_share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TechCrunch<\/a>, security is the second most important thing an IoT device needs (after enough power to function at all). Eddystone-EID allows companies to manage access to beacons for use-cases where privacy and security is a concern. This will allow for further implementation and innovation surrounding the proximity industry.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9227 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/dxjl3qy52c1o9.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/05211454\/Hierarchy_of_Iot_Needs.png\" alt=\"Hierarchy_of_Iot_Needs\" width=\"1320\" height=\"804\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<h4>Looking ahead at IoT security<\/h4>\n<p>This is a great step forward for IoT security. Proximity technology is growing fast and is being adopted by many different industries. A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/beacons-impact-billions-in-reail-sales-2015-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BI Intelligence<\/a> report predicted that beacons will directly influence over $44 billion worth of US retail sales in 2016. With growth like this, security will play a very important role in the long term success of not only beacons, but the IoT industry as a whole. As more companies like Google push to provide IoT security, we will begin to see more consumers and businesses trust the IoT and move to adopt this new technology.<br \/>\nTo read more on Eddystone-EID, check out this post from the <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.googleblog.com\/2016\/04\/growing-eddystone-with-ephemeral-identifiers.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Developers Blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July, Eddystone, an open beacon format from Google, was released with support for three frame types, Eddystone-UID, Eddystone-URL, and Eddystone-TLM. Due to the success and rapid adoption of these frame types, Google has now\u00a0released the technical specs on the fourth Eddystone frame type, Eddystone-EID. Eddystone-EID uses rotating ephemeral identifiers(EIDs) to broadcast a more secure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/passkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}