Security on MDEK1001

Wireless Connectivity Ultra-Wideband
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1

Good afternoon,

I would like to know how can i secure the MDEK1001 UWB network. Meaning:

  1. How do i prevent an external user to download the android manager app and modify my network settings ?
  2. I know that we can disconnect the bluetooth from the devices in the network but then does tag still send their position to the app? to the gateway?

Moreover, I would like to add a bluetooth 4 digit PIN so not everyone can connect to my tag and start dumping data. Shall I modify the firmware for that?

If you can provide any documentation/experience on how to do that, would be super useful.

Thanks!

2

@leapslabs Hi,
could you see my message above by any chance?

thanks!

3

Hi @axelcln
PANS 2.0 is pretty old firmware and unfortunately there is no way how to make the BLE connection secure. Also you can not modify the firmware as it is closed source firmware.

The only solution is to turn off the BLE on nodes and then use gateways for gathering positions form the data and configuring the network. You can also enable encryption on the UWB later if needed. But this will automatically turn off the BLE on the nodes.

Cheers
JK

4

Hi @leapslabs,
thanks for your message.
I have found the source code of the DWM1001 (API & on-board packages), in the “documents” section.
I have been trying to modify it to force PIN authentification on bluetooth pairing with tag and then flash all the uwb devices.
Do you have any experience with that?

5

Hi @axelcln
which source code you have found? There is a source code of the Android application and code samples for the PANS user application. But there is no source for the PANS firmware.

I dont think it is doable without modifying the PANS source code - which is not avaiable.

Cheers
JK

6

Hi @leapslabs,
In Documents>DWM1001>Source_Code>DWM1001_on_board_package_R2_0>dwm>examples>dwm_simple>dwm_simple.c

I was trying to implement the BLE pin pairing here and create new .hex from this code and then flash in the UWB devices.

But maybe I would rather modify the BLE behaviour in the nordic folder directly: \DWM1001\Source_Code\DWM1001_on_board_package_R2_0\dwm\nordicsemi\components\ble

What do you think it’s the best?
Thanks very much for your answer

7

Hi @axelcln
PANS 2.0 was released cca 7 years ago. Hence is support was stopped long time go and it is not maintained anymore.

However after bit of thinking I really dont think it is possible to modify the BLE in the way you need it.

The BLE is integrated into the precompiled part of the PANS library. And the dwm_simple is just a demo application for a client mini app which could be integrated on the top of the PANS part. Its use is quiet limited.

You have there the option to disable the BLE part and then you can try to setup a whole new BLE part, but it will be fully separated from the PANS library and very likely it will cause issue with the UWB part which was somehow cooperating with the BLE.

Im not sur about the use of nordicsemi folder, it is there just to have the option to include some of the drivers (SPI,PWM…) and it is just a copy from the nRF SDK from that time. I dont think you can initialize BLE from that.

Cheers
JK