Skycure unveiled a new remote Wi-Fi attack that completely disables all iPhones within a certain area.
Researchers at security company Skycure have unveiled a new remote Wi-Fi attack that completely disables all iPhones within a certain area.
If you ever wanted to create a "no-iOS zone," this is your chance.
Here's how it works: A bug with a particular kind of Wi-Fi router causes apps attempting to use SSL encryption to crash. Of course, the iPhone operating system also uses SSL to communicate with the Web. With a little bit of traffic manipulation, Skycure researchers discovered they could crash any iPhone connected to its Wi-Fi network.
Now you might think you could avoid this attack by not connecting to Wi-Fi, but that won't help. Skycure researchers were able to force iPhones to connect to their nefarious router without the users' knowledge. So phones connect to the deadly router, the phones crash, they reboot, and then they try to reach out to the last wireless network they were connected to, which is the bad router. That makes them crash, and an endless crash-reboot cycle begins.
Skycure disclosed the issues to Apple, and some have been addressed in iOS 8.3. But this is a reminder that no platform is bulletproof. It's also a reminder of how terrifying it would be for your phone to just cease functioning. Think about it: no calls, no messages, no camera, no navigation. Hackers out for money wouldn't be interested in this kind of attack, but someone looking to make sure events don't get recorded might be.
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