Kamala Harris Uses Wired Headphones. Should You?

Throughout the 2024 election, former vice chairman Kamala Harris was photographed utilizing wired headphones linked to a cellphone as she boarded Air Drive Two.

This isn’t the primary time Harris was photographed utilizing wired headphones, both. In her well-known “We did it, Joe” call to President Joe Biden about their 2020 victory over Donald Trump, Harris is seen holding a pair of wired headphones in a single hand. In reality, she has completed several tv interviews and official videos sporting wired headphones.

In 2021, Politico offered some insight into Harris’ headphones choice, reporting that she “has lengthy felt that Bluetooth headphones are a safety threat” and “insists on utilizing wired headphones” because of this, in line with three nameless former marketing campaign aides. (HuffPost reached out to Harris’ workplace about her wired headphone use however didn’t obtain a response.)

Now, we’d not know precisely why Harris depends on wired headphones. But when it’s due to safety dangers, she is correct to be distrustful of Bluetooth units, in line with cybersecurity specialists.

Bluetooth transmits information by the air inside a sure vary, which makes it inherently susceptible to close by threats, mentioned safety architect and licensed moral hacker Maril Vernon. She mentioned it was “clever” of Harris to make use of wired headphones.

″[Harris’] bodily connection is much more safe as a result of it eliminates the danger of the wi-fi sign being intercepted, and there’s just about no alternative for an attacker to listen in on her dialog if she’s utilizing the system and the headphones, until they had been standing proper subsequent to her and so they might bodily hear by her headphones, or they compromised her cellular system,” Vernon mentioned.

If Harris did use Bluetooth headphones, there could be extra threat for somebody with the ability to pay attention to her calls by a hacked connection, Kevin Johnson, CEO of the consultancy Secure Ideas and a hacker employed by firms to check their very own safety vulnerabilities, defined.

“In case you are elected to be the vice chairman of the USA, then sure … cease utilizing Bluetooth fully,” he mentioned.

Only a few of us will probably be entrusted with state secrets and techniques that we have to hold personal, however you’re more likely to be one of many estimated billions who use a Bluetooth-enabled system. So must you comply with Harris’ lead and stick with wired headphones?

The excellent news is that until you’re somebody who’s a high-profile goal for hackers, you’re OK to maintain utilizing your wi-fi headphones — so long as you’re taking some cautionary steps.

Each of the cybersecurity specialists that talked with HuffPost use Bluetooth-enabled headphones of their on a regular basis lives. However additionally they comply with just a few safety protocols to make their listening expertise safer in public areas. Right here’s how:

Break your behavior of leaving your Bluetooth setting on on a regular basis. Because the Federal Communications Fee warns on its web site, “Conserving it lively permits hackers to find what different units you linked to earlier than, spoof a kind of units, and achieve entry to your system.”

Switching off your Bluetooth while you’re not actively utilizing it should “decrease the window of alternative for attackers to aim to hook up with or intrude together with your connection to your units,” Vernon mentioned.

For instance, she advised turning off your Bluetooth setting while you take breaks from listening to your audiobook or music.

Additionally, take heed to the variety of strangers round you while you toggle again in your Bluetooth setting. Make sure that “you’re very near the system you need to connect with, and also you’re not round different individuals,” Vernon suggested, noting that the extra distance you’ve got from different individuals, the safer you’re when connecting.

When attainable, join your cellphone to your Bluetooth headphones within the privateness of your property earlier than you permit versus public settings like an airport or on board a airplane, she added.

Bluetooth-enabled units can connect with your cellphone or automotive in a course of referred to as “pairing.” However too many people overlook to “unpair” our units after we’re completed utilizing Bluetooth. And that’s an enormous safety threat.

“So many individuals connect with their buddy’s automotive one time to play music and by no means, ever go and take away their buddy’s automotive [from their list of paired devices],” Vernon mentioned. Now that your cellular system and your buddy’s automotive are linked, they’ll turn out to be reconnected “at any time if you happen to get near that system.”

Positive, it’s superb if it’s your buddy, however worrisome if it’s somebody you don’t belief.

“Any Bluetooth system has the potential of sharing information that you just don’t understand it has,” Johnson mentioned. “So you must take into consideration all of the units that you just join and use.”

Take the instance of renting a automotive and utilizing your cellphone’s Bluetooth capabilities to hearken to music or make hands-free calls. Don’t overlook to unpair your cellphone and “configure all the things to overlook that system” from the rented automotive after you come it, Johnson suggested. Should you don’t clear this information, somebody can achieve entry to your cellphone contacts and conversations in worst-case situations.

Bluetooth has gone by a number of iterations up to now 10 years. Most fashionable headphones, like second-generation AirPods, use Bluetooth 5.0 or newer. However it’s best to test what the supported Bluetooth model is in your units by wanting up the specs to your system. Johnson mentioned if you happen to purchased Bluetooth-enabled headphones within the final 5 – 6 years, you’re probably utilizing fashionable Bluetooth.

“Just be sure you’re not utilizing one thing to procure off of Amazon that’s utilizing Bluetooth model three, which isn’t as encrypted as Bluetooth model 5,” Vernon mentioned.

Moreover, don’t ignore firmware updates for the cellphone you pair your wi-fi headphones with. These software program replace requests out of your system producer usually are not despatched to harass you, with Vernon explaining that “often what they’re attempting to remove is distant code execution and other people connecting to your system with out your permission.”

Are your AirPods, iPhone and iPad all at present recognized by your actual identify? If that’s the case, it’s best to rethink this, Vernon mentioned. When your Bluetooth setting is on, your units are discoverable, and so they can reveal private particulars like your identify or your kids’s names that you’d slightly strangers in your proximity not know.

Vernon beneficial naming your system “one thing bizarre, so nobody can correlate it to you,” and famous that it doubles as “an added layer of safety.”

She gave the instance of giving your Bluetooth-enabled system a random identify that’s not yours, in order that method hackers have “much less data to work with.”

Bluetooth has made it handy for us to remain linked to our music, pals and a lot extra whereas we’re on the go, and until you’ve got a job that has extremely delicate data, you don’t have to surrender that ease of comfort altogether. Simply keep in mind to comply with these steps to keep away from broadcasting your private information for strangers to seek out and see.