If you have an iPhone, pay close attention to a strange wifi network with the name “%p%s%s%s%s%s%n”. This name causes a very harmful error. You will not have to connect to this network unless you want to interrupt the Wi-Fi function of your phone.
The bug was discovered by security researcher Carl Shaw, who shared the issue on Twitter. Shaw explained that after joining the “%p%s%s%s%s%s%n” network, his iPhone permanently disabled its wifi functions. According to 9to5Mac, The bug also affects iPads, as well as services like AirDrop. Devices cannot connect to Wi-Fi networks even after restarting or changing the hotspot SSID.
Shaw hasn’t revealed exactly how he found the bug, though it has been confirmed by other brave Twitter users who have tried to connect to a wifi with that name. I mentioned that MacRumors wifi on android phones doesn’t seem to stop when connected to the same network.
Fortunately, the error does not appear to cause permanent damage to Apple devices and can be fixed. Once you get over the frustration, here’s how to fix it.
The fix is simple.
You just need to reset all network settings, 9to5Mac explained. This can be done by going to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings. This restores all wifi networks saved on your iPhone, thus deleting the cursed network name from the device memory. After that, the phone should be able to connect to Wi-Fi normally.
As for the cause of the error, the common theory seems to be that this is an input parsing problem that causes iOS to believe that the characters after the percent sign are a string format specifier, which indicates the name of a variable or command used in markup languages. Some believe that this could corrupt the memory, which could cause iOS Watchdog to stop the process, and thus the Wi-Fi function.
As hard as it may be, find wifi networks named “%p%s%s%s%s%n” every day, It is better to be vigilant on any network with a percentage sign, at least until Apple fixes the problem with the update.
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