This bug can disable your Apple iPhone Wi-Fi; Here’s how it works and what you can do to stop it

The recently discovered bug can disable Apple iPhone connectivity if it comes within range of a specific Wi-Fi network. Here’s how you can stop your iPhone from being affected.

Representational image: You might want to disable Wi-Fi connectivity on your iPhone when you are in public to stay safe. 

Apple iPhones are well known for their stability and reliable software experience, but even iOS occasionally suffers from bugs that can somewhat impair functionality of their pricey fhandsets. A new report suggests that a software bug, a new variant, on a recent Apple iPhone version can prevent users from accessing Wi-Fi networks.

Apple iPhone: Communications breakdown

Last month, we reported that a researcher had found a bug on iOS 14 that would prevent users from connecting to a Wi-Fi network. At the time, it was discovered that users who tried to connect to a network with a specific name had the Wi-Fi functionality on their devices disabled. This would reportedly prevent them from connecting to other networks, which meant that Apple features like AirDrop that rely on Wi-Fi would no longer work.

It was previously discovered that connecting to a Wi-Fi network with a percentage sign in the network name would disable the Wi-Fi functionality on an iPhone running iOS 14, since the operating system processes the word after the symbol as a command. However, at the time, the researcher had stated that users could recover Wi-Fi connectivity by going to the device's settings and tapping the reset network settings option.

Seriously, I still don't have WiFi pic.twitter.com/AaF9IQBvCp

— Carl Schou (@vm_call) July 4, 2021

New variant of bug on the prowl

However, a report by Business Insider states that the same researcher has discovered a new variation of the bug that could prove difficult for users to deal with. The report states that when an iPhone is within the range of a Wi-Fi network called ‘%secretclub%power' it will disable the Wi-Fi connectivity on the device. Unlike the previous version of the bug, users don't even need to connect to the network to be affected, the report states, and users only need to be within range of the network to be affected.

How to save your Apple iPhone

While users were previously able to reset the device's network settings to fix the disabled Wi-Fi functionality, the report states that with the newly discovered bug, connectivity might not be restored with the same method. It appears that only a hard reset of the device, or restoring a previous backup of the device before the Wi-Fi functionality got disabled should bring back the functionality, according to the report. Apple has not yet issued a statement on the alleged bug, but users can stay safe by disabling their Wi-Fi connection when they are out of range of their known networks.