IOS 14 Privacy Features Can Disturb Office WiFi Networks?

IPhone illustration (Irvan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Apple recently announced iOS 14, bringing many changes to its privacy features on various platforms. This change is claimed to better protect users from things like tracking.

One of those changes includes how iOS devices will use random MAC addresses when connected to WiFi networks, preventing network operators from using MAC addresses to track customers.

However, according to security firm Cisco, this privacy feature is not great for companies and the education sector, as it has the potential to damage certain networks or device management systems used by companies, schools, colleges and others.

Cisco warns that the Identity Services Engine (ISE) could run into problems if the user enables the feature because it relies on MAC address lookups. It is known that there is currently no way to solve this problem, other than disabling the random MAC address feature

"For Profiling and Mobile device management (MDM) services, end users can be instructed to deactivate MAC address randomization on the device before getting the intended network access," Cisco said, as quoted from 9to5Google, Friday, September 18.

For your information, employees or students who use their own devices for learning activities at school or work, can also experience problems with network security requirements, because they often rely on MAC addresses for authentication.

It's not just Apple devices that can cause problems. Google on Android 10 is also adding random MAC addresses as a security feature.

"The solution, the user can be redirected to a modified hotspot page, where it will provide instructions to disable MAC address randomization when the device uses random MAC addresses to connect to the network. After MAC address randomization is disabled, users can connect normally," he explained. Cisco.

It should also be noted, that this feature is enabled or disabled per network, which means that users can selectively deactivate it only for work or school networks.