Researchers discovered significant security vulnerabilities in Tile devices that could allow both the company and tech-savvy individuals to track users' locations.
These vulnerabilities arise from two key differences between the security measures used for AirTags and Tile tags.
See also: Life360: Data breach of thousands of users
These gaps could potentially be exploited to falsely frame a Tile owner for tracking, making it appear that their Tile tag is constantly near another tag.
Both AirTags and Tile tags work similarly, using Bluetooth to broadcast their identity to nearby smartphones. Both rotate their identity codes every 15 minutes to prevent a permanent connection with a specific tag.
In the case of AirTags, only the rotating identifier code is transmitted and all transmissions are encrypted. However, researchers found that Tile tags transmit both the rotating identifier code and their static MAC address and neither is encrypted, which represents a significant security vulnerability.
Wired reports that researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that the MAC address is transmitted along with the ID, and unlike the ID, Tile’s MAC addresses do not change. A tag’s location, its MAC address, and its unique ID are sent unencrypted to Tile’s servers, where it is believed that this information is stored in plain text, allowing Tile to track the location of the tags and their owners, despite the company’s claims to the contrary.
See also: Find Hub for Android allows tracking via UWB
Additionally, anyone with a radio frequency scanner can eavesdrop on this information as it is transmitted. The problem would not be solved even if Tile stopped transmitting the MAC address, because the method used to generate the rotating identity code is insecure, allowing prediction of future codes from previous ones.
The Tile offers some protection similar to AirTags, allowing users to check if they are being tracked by another tag. However, there is a significant vulnerability in Tile's app. When a tag owner activates the anti-theft mode to make their tag invisible to thieves, those tags also become invisible in scans intended for tracking detection. This allows a stalker to hide their tracking tag by setting it to anti-theft mode.
Additionally, a malicious actor could frame someone as a stalker. Using a radio‑frequency antenna to collect unencrypted transmissions from another user’s tag, an attacker can extract the MAC address and the unique identifier and then broadcast this information from a different location. If a user performs an anti‑tracking scan in that area, they will see the MAC address and the unique identifier, which will be sent to Tile’s server, making it appear that the tag was near the person who performed the scan. Researchers note that there is no way to determine whether a MAC address and a unique identifier were emitted by a legitimate Tile device or were maliciously spoofed.
See also: Man found his stolen BMW thanks to AirTag
Security researchers reported their findings to Tile's parent company, Life360, in November last year, but the company cut off communication in February this year. Life360 said it has made several improvements to its security, but did not specify whether these addressed the identified issues.
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