Bastille recently released a new research report analyzing 15 years of wireless vulnerability data across major protocols, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, and Zigbee. The report highlights a clear trend: wireless vulnerabilities are expanding rapidly and accumulating into a persistent enterprise attack surface.
Wireless technologies now underpin modern enterprise operations. Wi-Fi connects employees and infrastructure, Bluetooth links peripherals and medical devices, and cellular and IoT protocols support building automation, industrial systems, and logistics infrastructure.
As these technologies expand across enterprise and operational environments, the vulnerabilities associated with them are growing quickly. Bastille’s new research shows that wireless vulnerabilities are increasing 20x faster than the broader CVE ecosystem, creating security challenges that traditional vulnerability management approaches often struggle to address.
Figure 1 depicts the indexed growth of wireless CVEs vs. all CVEs from 2010 to 2025, with 2010 set to 100, demonstrating that wireless CVEs are growing at a rate 20x that of total CVEs.
Understanding how this trend developed and what it means for organizations is critical as wireless connectivity becomes foundational to modern digital infrastructure.
What the Numbers Really Indicate
Wireless vulnerabilities have expanded dramatically over the past fifteen years.
In 2010, researchers disclosed only four wireless-related CVEs. By 2025, that number had reached 937 wireless CVEs in a single year. This increase represents more than a 230× increase in annual wireless vulnerability disclosures.
The acceleration has been particularly noticeable in recent years. In 2025 alone, researchers disclosed 937 wireless CVEs, averaging about 2.5 new wireless vulnerabilities every day. These vulnerabilities now account for nearly 2% of all CVEs reported annually, a notable share given that wireless technologies constitute a subset of the overall vulnerability landscape.
Figure 2 depicts the exponential growth in wireless CVEs over the past 15 years, by protocol, covering Wi-Fi, Cellular, Bluetooth, and Zigbee.
The broader vulnerability ecosystem is expanding rapidly. Total CVE disclosures have reached record levels in recent years, and industry forecasts suggest that annual disclosures across all technologies will soon exceed 50,000 vulnerabilities.
However, wireless vulnerabilities are growing even faster.
When indexed against a 2010 baseline, wireless CVEs have expanded more than 20x faster than total CVE disclosures over the same period. This divergence highlights how the growth of wireless technologies is creating a new layer of risk that expands independently from traditional software vulnerabilities.
Recent data suggests that wireless vulnerability growth is not slowing.
Researchers disclosed:
- 716 wireless CVEs in 2024
- 937 wireless CVEs in 2025
Together, these disclosures expanded the cumulative wireless CVE base by roughly 60% in just two years. Since 2014, wireless CVEs have doubled every 2-4 years.
This multi-year pattern of sustained growth suggests that the acceleration is not a statistical anomaly but part of a broader trend tied to the rapid expansion of wireless technologies across enterprise and operational environments.
Why Wireless Vulnerabilities Are Different
Wireless vulnerabilities often behave differently from traditional software vulnerabilities.
Many originate in protocol implementations, device firmware, or chipset-level components that multiple vendors widely reuse across multiple products. A single vulnerability can therefore affect millions of devices simultaneously.
Wireless systems also introduce operational challenges that complicate remediation.
Many devices that rely on wireless communication:
- Operate outside centralized security management
- Lack standardized patch mechanisms
- Remain deployed for years in operational environments
- Cannot be easily replaced or updated
These characteristics allow wireless vulnerabilities to remain relevant long after disclosure.
The Protocols Driving Wireless Vulnerability Growth
The Bastille report shows that while wireless vulnerabilities span multiple technologies, some protocols account for a larger share of disclosures.
Wi-Fi represents the largest contributor to wireless CVEs and drives much of the overall growth curve.
Bluetooth follows closely behind, with disclosure rates fluctuating due to its widespread use across consumer devices, enterprise peripherals, medical equipment, and automotive systems.
Other technologies, such as cellular and Zigbee, contribute fewer disclosures but pose growing risks due to their increasing use in operational technology and IoT ecosystems.
Together, these technologies form a rapidly expanding wireless attack surface that spans enterprise IT, operational systems, and embedded infrastructure.
Wireless Risk Is Expanding Faster Than Enterprise Defenses
Traditional vulnerability management programs focus on identifying and patching software running on known assets such as servers, laptops, and applications.
Wireless vulnerabilities frequently fall outside these models.
Many wireless systems rely on firmware, drivers, or embedded stacks that operate independently of standard IT asset management tools. Some devices communicate only over radio frequency channels and do not appear in network scans or vulnerability assessments.
As wireless CVEs scale faster than the broader vulnerability landscape, the gap between wireless exposure and enterprise visibility continues to widen.
How Bastille Helps Address Wireless Risk
As wireless technologies become embedded across enterprise and operational environments, organizations need visibility into the wireless environment itself.
Bastille provides continuous, 100% passive monitoring of the RF spectrum, giving security teams visibility into wireless activity across Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, LTE, and 5G.
Because Bastille analyzes wireless signals directly, organizations gain insight into devices and communications that traditional network security tools cannot detect.
This capability enables security teams to:
- Identify wireless devices operating within the environment, including unmanaged and non-IP systems
- Detect wireless activity associated with vulnerable technologies or device classes
- Maintain awareness of wireless infrastructure deployed across facilities
- Investigate anomalous wireless activity that may indicate potential security issues
Bastille applies patented algorithms and analysis to characterize wireless activity and provide actionable insight into the wireless environment without requiring agents, network integration, or changes to existing infrastructure.
By delivering continuous visibility into wireless activity, Bastille helps organizations better understand their wireless environment and make informed decisions when addressing emerging wireless vulnerabilities.
Understanding the Wireless Threat Landscape
Wireless connectivity continues to expand across enterprise environments, industrial systems, and smart infrastructure.
The Bastille report highlights how the growth of wireless vulnerabilities reflects the increasing complexity and scale of these ecosystems. As protocols evolve and new wireless devices enter production environments, the discovery of additional weaknesses becomes more likely.
Understanding how wireless vulnerabilities accumulate over time represents a critical step toward managing wireless risk in modern organizations.
Read the Full Report
Bastille’s latest research provides a deeper analysis of wireless vulnerability trends and their implications for enterprise security teams.
Download the report at https://bastille.net/resource/the-state-of-wireless-security-in-2026/ to explore how wireless vulnerabilities are evolving and what organizations should consider as wireless technologies continue to expand across enterprise and operational environments.
