The iOS 1970 bug that can brick your devices is back and with a twist, with two security researchers now saying they were able to craft an automated exploit that can leverage the same issue via network connections, without needing access to a user’s device. Those encryption certificates stop working correctly if the system time and date on the user’s mobile is set to a year that predates the certificate’s issuance.
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Apple swiftly issued a fix to sort it out.
The method involves spoofing Apple’s network time protocol (NTP) server with a device, in this case a Raspberry Pi, on the same Wi-Fi network as a vulnerable iOS device.
The glitch causes some devices to overheat before breaking them, despite the fact iPhones and iPads have built-in safeguards to avoid problems if the devices get too hot. The iPhone stores the date in GMT, so in some time zones, changing to January 1 1970 will set its internal clock below zero, according to one Reddit user.
Researchers are claiming that iOS devices, both iPhones and iPads, would not crash immediately, like in the original scenario, but would slowly start to heat up and become unresponsive.
Previously, iPhone owners had to roll-back the date themselves within the devie’s Settings menu, something that took a lot of time and effort.
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You could be locked out of your iPhone – just by connecting to a wifi network. But once you’ve done that, you won’t ever have to manually connect to a network called “attwifi” ever again. While many of these public beta testers now say that the bugs creating the White Screen of Death have been fixed by the new iOS build, mum’s the word from Apple which has yet to officially confirm it. Another fix handled by the first beta version of iOS 9.3.2 allows the contextual Quick Actions memo to launch smoothly and quickly while in landscape mode. This is quite a convenient feature but it can be used to trigger the 1970 bug.
