Security News > 2021 > June > Beware! Connecting to This Wireless Network Can Break Your iPhone's Wi-Fi Feature

A wireless network naming bug has been discovered in Apple's iOS operating system that effectively disables an iPhone's ability to connect to a Wi-Fi network.

The issue was spotted by security researcher Carl Schou, who found that the phone's Wi-Fi functionality gets permanently disabled after joining a Wi-Fi network with the unusual name "%p%s%s%s%s%n" even after rebooting the phone or changing the network's name.

The bug could have serious implications in that bad actors could exploit the issue to plant fraudulent Wi-Fi hotspots with the name in question to break the device's wireless networking features.

After joining my personal WiFi with the SSID "%p%s%s%s%s%n", my iPhone permanently disabled it's WiFi functionality.

"After all, to trigger this bug, you need to connect to that WiFi, where the SSID is visible to the victim. A phishing Wi-Fi portal page might as well be more effective."

While the issue isn't reproducible on Android devices, iPhones that have been affected by the problem would need to have their iOS network settings reset by going to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings and confirm the action.

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