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I would like to develop an iOS app that works with a medical device which is paired to the iPhone using BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).

My concern is that paired devices are available to all apps on an iOS device. How can I secure communication so only my app can communicate with this specific device? Is there perhaps a way to encrypt communication to prevent other apps from being able to communicate with the device?

blizz
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In that case you need to implement some secure protocol on top of GATT / BLE, since as you say iOS gives all apps access, regardless if it's paired or not. You may also want to make sure no one can reverse engineer this. But at this point we are no longer really discussing BLE but just general security. So you might be better off asking at https://security.stackexchange.com.

But note that the other app will not see the communication that the first app does to / from the peripheral, with the exception of notifications / indications. However what you need to solve is how the peripheral knows if a request comes from the correct app.

Emil
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  • is there any documentation outlining how iOS secures communication between one app and a BLE device? I'd like to know how iOS secures it so that other apps cannot eavesdrop. Thanks – blizz May 07 '18 at 20:37
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    See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50163172/communication-between-ble-device-and-different-android-apps-on-same-device/50164198#50164198 and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48428762/ios-apps-that-access-the-same-ble-peripheral-how-to-distinguish. Android and iOS behave pretty much the same. – Emil May 08 '18 at 08:59