iOS Bug Brings about Specific Community Name to Disable Wi-Fi on iPhones

A wi-fi community naming bug has been found out in iOS that properly disables an iPhone’s capacity to link to Wi-Fi.

Security researcher Carl Schou observed that just after becoming a member of a Wi-Fi network with the title “%p%s%s%s%s%n” his ‌iPhone‌’s Wi-Fi operation was left “forever disabled.”

Modifying a hotspot’s SSID did absolutely nothing to accurate the problem, with even a reboot failing to make a difference, according to BleepingComputer.

Other customers who had been ready to replicate the problem have prompt the bug could be similar to the first use in the community title of the share signal, which potential customers to an input parsing difficulty whereby iOS mistakenly interprets the letters adhering to the “%” as a string-format specifier.

In C and C-design and style languages, string format specifiers have a particular this means and are parsed by the language compiler as a variable identify or a command as an alternative of common textual content.

Android phones will not appear to be to be affected by the exact same community, but iPhones hit by the dilemma require to have their network settings reset ahead of a Wi-Fi hotspot can be related all over again.

To accomplish the reset, open the Options app, faucet Typical -> Reset, then faucet Reset Community Configurations and affirm the request at the prompt.