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With iOS 17.2, Apple has patched the vulnerability that gave Flipper Zero the ability to flood iPhones with pop-up messages, ZDNet reports.
Back in 2020, Flipper Zero launched a crowdfunding campaign to launch a Swiss Army Knife of sorts for hacking. The $169 device finally became a reality in 2022, and in July an app store launched for the device.
Flipper Zero can interact with digital interfaces to emulate RFID and NFC cards as well as do things like imitate remote controls and analyze radio protocols. It looks sort of like a toy, but it can allow you to test your network and look for security snafus. It’s also open source, which means anyone can build something for it. Like, for instance, a way to flood your friend’s iPhone with pop-ups that cause it to freeze and require a reboot.
The attack required a user to have a Flipper Zero running the Xtreme third-party firmware. A user could then use the built-in BLE Spam app to essentially perform a denial of service (DoS) attack on every iPhone within a 30-foot radius. Android and Windows devices were less vulnerable, but could be attacked as well.
ZDNet says someone attempting the attack could still get a few pop-ups to show up on devices, but not as many as before, and they won’t cause a total meltdown of every nearby device.
To get the patch, update your iPhone to the latest version by going to Settings > General > Software Update.