Why you shouldn’t rely on Apple-generated passwords when tethering your iPhone

If you’re using your iPhone as your personal Wi-Fi hotspot in a public place, you may want to skip Apple’s offer of creating a makeshift password for you. ZDNet reports that “researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany have found a flaw in the automatically generated pre-shared keys used in Apple’s iOS hotspots that could make them susceptible to attack in under a minute.” The big issue, the researchers say, is that iOS generates passwords too predictably by using a limited number of dictionary words followed by a random sequence of numbers. Because this limits the number of passwords iOS can generate, it leaves users vulnerable to hackers who have a list of words that iOS most often gives for temporary passwords. Essentially, you’re much better off relying on your own complex password when tethering devices to your iPhone than you are using Apple’s makeshift password system.