An attack using the Flipper Zero that sent floods of pop-ups to iPhones, causing them to lock up and crash, has been blocked by Apple. It appears Apple has fixed the issue in iOS 17.2, according to tests from ZDNET and 9to5Mac, although the company hasn’t officially announced it.
The Flipper Zero is a small device that can do lots of different things with antennas. Before, it could send a ton of Bluetooth messages really fast to iPhones. This would make so many pop-ups appear that the iPhone would freeze up and stop working!
The only way to stop it was turning Bluetooth all the way off on the iPhone. But now it seems Apple solved the problem in iOS 17.2. When ZDNET and 9to5Mac tried crashing iPhones with the newest software, only a few pop-ups came up. That wasn’t enough to break the iPhone.
We don’t know exactly what Apple did to fix it. The Verge asked Apple but they didn’t give more details yet. If you haven’t updated your iPhone recently, it’s a good idea to get iOS 17.2 now. This will protect your phone from the Flipper Zero attack.
