Psst, network names including ‘%’ may block your iPhone’s Wi-Fi



Are you on your iPhone? And can you see an attractive public Wi-Fi network with lots of percentage symbols in the title? DON’T JOIN HIM, PAL! OH GOD NO.

Why? Well, Carl Schou – a security researcher based in Denmark – discovered one day zero that can jam Wi-Fi on iPhones or other iOS devices. Here is what he posted:

According to Schou, joining this network cut the Wi-Fi of his iPhone. He tried reset network settings and force restart the device, but nothing worked until it manually modified iPhone backup.

This experience may not be universal however. When this was shared on Reddit, some users on the site joined a network with this name without any difficulty.

The worrying thing is that this problem with the percentage symbol in Wi-Fi network names is nothing new. Schou himself reported a similar issue a few weeks ago where joining a network called “% p% s% s% s% s% n” on iPhone turned off Wi-Fi:

The reason that percentage symbols cause a problem with iPhone Wi-Fi is due to the computer programming language C. The symbol “%” is a string format specifier C. It is likely that the name of the network triggers a channel formatting process on the iPhone and blocks the Wi-Fi functionality.

If you want more technical details, this piece on The Register Breaks down what probably happened with the “% p% s% s% s% s% n” network mentioned above. We can assume that something similar is happening with the name “% secretclub% power”.

I will say that it is surprising that Apple has not done anything to fix this problem yet. Although this question does not sound dangerous, it is embarrassing.

So here’s the question: What can you, an iPhone user, do to prevent your Wi-Fi from being overwhelmed by a mysterious network?

Well, it’s pretty simple: don’t join any random public networks. And be especially wary of those with percentage symbols in their name.

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