It has been suggested many times in the past that connecting to public WiFi might not necessarily be a great idea as it could potentially allow hackers access to your device. This might be especially true for iOS devices as researchers from Skycure have discovered an iOS vulnerability that could allow attackers to crash iOS devices that might be within range of a WiFi hotspot.
Dubbed the “No iOS Zone” vulnerability, basically this will see attackers take advantage of a security flaw in iOS by manipulating SSL certificates being sent to the device over a network, like that of a WiFi hotspot. From there, the attackers will be able to crash the devices or in a worst-case scenario, cause the device to be stuck in a constant boot-loop.
Now this isn’t as simple as users choosing to not connect to WiFi hotspots. Skycure discovered that iOS devices have been preprogrammed by carriers to automatically connect to certain WiFi hotspots, like AT&T iOS devices might constantly seek to connect to a network called “attwifi”. From there the hackers would just need to create a similar network and have the device connect to it and launch their attack.
The solution? Disable WiFi, although in some cases this might not necessarily be ideal. The researchers claim that they are now working with Apple on developing a fix, so in the meantime if you’d like to be completely secure, perhaps disabling WiFi while you’re out and about might be a good idea.