This iPhone bug kills your phone's Wi-Fi — what you need to know
Look out — there's a new iOS bug that can kill your iPhone or iPad's Wi-Fi functions if you connect to a hotspot with a very unusual name, or SSID.Â
You won't be able to connect to another hotspot, and rebooting the iDevice doesn't fix the problem. But there is a way to get out of the hole without completely factory-resetting your iPhone or iPad.
"After joining my personal WiFi with the SSID "%p%s%s%s%s%n", my iPhone permanently disabled its WiFi functionality," wrote Danish hacker Carl Schou on Twitter on Friday (June 18). "Neither rebooting nor changing SSID fixes it :~)"
After joining my personal WiFi with the SSID “%p%s%s%s%s%n”, my iPhone permanently disabled it’s WiFi functionality. Neither rebooting nor changing SSID fixes it :~) pic.twitter.com/2eue90JFu3June 18, 2021
Schou told Bleeping Computer that he had found this flaw on an iPhone XS running iOS 14.4.2. The website reproduced it on an iPhone running iOS 14.6, the most recently released version of Apple's mobile operating system. Android phones do not seem to be affected.
