I was reading an article on an iOS8 SSL exploit on The Register when one quote caught my eye:

“Anyone can take any router and create a Wi-Fi hotspot that forces you to connect to their network, and then manipulate the traffic to cause apps and the operating system to crash,”

Emphasis mine. This is reiterated in the slides (PDF warning!) on pages 20-22. It mentions that it wouldn't be possible unless you can force the user to connect to WiFi and it mentions "Karma attacks" and "WifiGate" as a way to bypass any user interaction.

Even before the DoS exploit, the idea of an attacker manipulating a device onto their network is terrifying.

Could somebody explain how these work, if they only apply to iOS and either way, how somebody might mitigate against them?

I was reading an article on an iOS8 SSL exploit on The Register when one quote caught my eye:

“Anyone can take any router and create a Wi-Fi hotspot that forces you to connect to their network, and then manipulate the traffic to cause apps and the operating system to crash,”

Emphasis mine. This is reiterated in the slides (PDF warning!) on pages 20-22. It mentions that it wouldn't be possible unless you can force the user to connect to WiFi but immediately says that's possible to circumvent with "Karma attacks" and "WifiGate", bypassing any user interaction.

Even before the DoS exploit, the idea of an attacker manipulating a device onto their network is terrifying.

Could somebody explain how these work, if they only apply to iOS and either way, how somebody might mitigate against them?