Text Message With Certain Text Can Crash Messages App iOS – Update

Apple’s mobile operating system suffers from a bug that could allow users to crash other users’ Messages app. This can be done by sending a specific message via SMS or iMessage to a user with iOS. The problem is relatively easy to solve.

It is a specific combination of Latin and Arabic characters. iOS users report on social media that the text is circulating and that ‘pranksters’ are sending the text around. Some users report that the bug does not work on iOS 8.4 beta.

If the text is sent to an iOS user, the Messages app will crash as soon as it is opened. This is reported by 9to5Mac and The Verge, among others. According to 9to5Mac, the iPhone or iPad can also crash completely due to the bug. The Verge reports that it cannot verify this, but that an affected iPhone did become a lot slower.

The crashed Messages is relatively easy to recover. Affected users must send a reply to the user who sent the malicious message. Since the Messages app cannot be opened, they have to find another way to do that. This can be done, for example, with the help of OS X, if the user has access to it, or by means of the Siri app. The so-called Share Sheet, which, for example, can be used to send links to other apps, can also be used for this.

It has happened before that iOS was hit with a “text message of death”. Apple is often able to solve these problems quickly, but as far as we know, there is no definitive solution available yet.

Update, 20:10: Notifications from other apps can also cause crashes, reports Maarten Boone of Fox-IT. This also includes Twitter, in the case of a private message or if a user is mentioned in a tweet. If users have set that they are shown unread notifications again, this can result in a boot loop, because the notification is always loaded into the lockscreen.