How to crash any iPhone or iPad within WiFi range

Security researchers presenting at this week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco, have uncovered a whole new compelling reason to switch off your phone.

Skycure’s Yair Amit and Adi Sharabani have demonstrated a startling vulnerability in iOS that can allow malicious hackers to crash any iOS device within range of a WiFi hotspot.

And it doesn’t even matter if targeted devices are trying to deliberately connect to the WiFi network or not.

Yes, you heard that right. Pranksters are going to *love* this one.

The researchers have dubbed their discovery “No iOS Zone”, and explained how they uncovered the attack method when preparing a demonstration:

“One day, during preparation for a demonstration of a network-based attack, we bought a new router. After setting the router in a specific configuration and connecting devices to it, our team witnessed the sudden crash of an iOS app.”

“After a few moments, other people started to notice crashes. Pretty quickly, we realized that only iOS users were suffering from crashes.”

 According to the researchers, the attack can render vulnerable iOS devices within range so unstable that they can be forced into a constant cycle of crashes.

Although many may view such an attack as a practical joke, the truth is that such a “denial of service” attack could have a serious impact on organisations reliant upon their iOS devices.

In their presentation, Amit and Sharabani could be used at political events, or by protestors in financial hubs.