A Resolvable Private Address (RPA) is a Bluetooth address created to look random and is used in place of a device's fixed MAC address to protect user privacy. Another feature highlighted in the announcement is better power efficiency starting from Bluetooth 6.1, which stems from allowing the chip (Controller) to autonomously handle the randomized RPA updates. One new feature highlighted in the latest release is the increased device privacy via randomized Resolvable Private Addresses (RPA) updates. Bluetooth 6.1 improves privacy by randomizing the RPA updates between 8 and 15 minutes (default), while also allowing custom values between the range of 1 second to 1 hour. Specifically, the Bluetooth chip will choose the randomized timing intervals and generate and update the RPA internally without waking the host device. "Randomizing the timing of address changes makes it much more difficult for third parties to track or correlate device activity over time," reads SIG's announcement. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced Bluetooth Core Specification 6.1, bringing important improvements to the popular wireless communication protocol. Bill Toulas Bill Toulas is a tech writer and infosec news reporter with over a decade of experience working on various online publications, covering open-source, Linux, malware, data breach incidents, and hacks. The first wave of chips with Bluetooth 6.1 should not be realistically expected before 2026, and even then, early implementations may not immediately expose all the newly available features, as testing and validation may be required. While Bluetooth 6.1 has made exciting steps forward, it's important to underline that actual support in hardware and firmware may take years to arrive. The Controller picks a random value in the defined range using a NIST-approved random number generator, and updates the RPA.
This Cyber News was published on www.bleepingcomputer.com. Publication date: Sun, 11 May 2025 15:55:07 +0000