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The latest iPhone Security Vulnerability – iMessages Bug

Here’s the nasty bug that has everyone complaining to Apple:

Screenshot 2015-05-27 12.34.06

effective.

Power

لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗

Send that to someone with an iPhone it turns their phone off


Copy all above the line and text it to another iPhone and it will shut it off.

I wonder what other things we can control with this, rather than just “power off the device.”

Any ideas?

Edit 1: you don’t need that first line, plus i fixed it

edit 2: a list of things we discovered so far

  • it only seems to work if your phone is not on safe mode it always works
  • on a jailbroken phone it shoots you into safe mode…could means that it might be related to a Springboard vulnerability
  • it doesn’t work if the person you are sending is looking at your texts, they can be anywhere else on their iPhone

edit 3: something i’ve noticed, apple changes the api with every new ios, right? maybe it has something to do with that?

edit 4: what’s weird is I’m on iOS 8.1.2 and it crashes my phone as well, so this is not only on the latest OS

edit 5: we found out what it is. it is due to how the banner notifications process the Unicode text. The banner briefly attempts to present the incoming text and then “gives up” thus the crash creds to /u/sickestdancer98

edit 6: this also works with WhatsApp (aparently)

edit 7: Idea We could make an app with this notification called “Respring”, make it so it crashes the app so your at your homescreen, and then it sends you a notification with this text and your phone resprings!

Comments

  1. Sterling Miller - 9 years ago

    How exactly is this a “security vulnerability” ?

    “Here’s the nasty bug that has everyone complaining to Apple” yep because I receive random crap letters in my text on a daily basis and it reboots my phone. WTF.

    • Cristian Moisei - 9 years ago

      It’s a vulnerability because all the people who have your number can be jackasses and restart your phone.

  2. Melanie Standish Moonen - 9 years ago

    Is this only applicable to iMessage users? Or to regular text messaging also? (ie: am I okay if my iMessage is turned off?)

    • mirageboss - 9 years ago

      I believe it works for Messages as a whole (SMS or iMessage). Also works for WhatsApp

  3. I’m on ipad(retina screen) IOS 8.3! I tried to send the unicode to a friend and my ipad fucked up

  4. jgritty - 9 years ago

    Doesn’t do anything to my phone. ios 8.3 on 5S

  5. Potts Villy - 9 years ago

    when i first my phone i turned all banners off and i have received this message and my phone has not restarted yet so maybe you can try it

    • Potts Villy - 9 years ago

      when i first got my phone i turned all banners off and i have received this message and my phone has not restarted yet so maybe you can try it

  6. jasona1969 - 9 years ago

    It locked me out of texring, couldn’t even open my sms icon it just flickerd and wouldn’t open. I have resolved this issue now thank god as i send and receive texts 12 hrs a day.

  7. Justin (@JCraftr) - 9 years ago

    ر ॣ ॣ works, too. Found it out myself.

  8. Chaudry Shahab Javed - 9 years ago

    how can we undo this if i send this to some one and his phone restarts this happens only once or it will continue?