While Apple supposedly fixed the iOS bricking date bug with iOS 9.3, it seems like it may have just applied a bandage over the problem instead of fixing the core of the issue. Security researchers have discovered this bug can be replicated involuntarily for iPhone users by manipulating Wi-Fi hotspots.
The January 1, 1970 bug will crash any iOS device that has its clock set back to that date and time, and keep it in a crashing loop until the iOS device’s battery is either disconnected manually, or the battery drains itself completely on its own.
Because the bug puts the iOS device into the equivalent of standby mode, the latter could take up to a couple weeks to finally happen. The issue only affects iOS devices with 64-bit processor chips, meaning every iPhone released after the iPhone 5 is susceptible to being bricked.
Apple made it impossible to manually change the time and date to January 1, 1970, but the bug still remains, and is possibly even more malicious than before. This is because iOS devices such iPhones and iPads automatically get their date and time information from Apple’s servers.
The problem lies in how iOS devices connect to Wi-Fi networks using the name of the Wi-Fi hotspot as way to differentiate between them. This is why your iPhone connects to a Wi-Fi network by itself when you’re out and about.
Patrick Kelley and Matt Harrigan discovered that by spoofing a popular Wi-Fi network — 9to5Mac uses Starbucks as an example — and the DNS records for ”time.apple.com,” iOS devices could be auto-bricked if the spoofed NTP purposefully sends out the wrong date and time.
(h/t KrebsonSecurity )
