iMessage Bug Used to Crash iPhones at Will
Bohs Hansen / 10 years ago
People have discovered a new old flaw in iMessage that allows you to crash basically any iPhone at will. I say new old because the flaw already was known back in iOS 6 and IS X 10.8.
People are currently using this flaw to abuse and annoy their friends by creating panic over crashing systems and it is effectively an SMS bomb. Send the right characters to an iPhone and it crashes and turns off.
An SMS bomb is exactly what it sounds like. A lot of messages sent quickly in a row, as many as you specify, to whomever you want. The text sent is simple and only about 10 bytes long. You can even specify a delay between the messages. Apps that use this are available and are being used. Bomb someone with 100+ messages and their phone locks up.
This one is a little different as it actually uses a bug in Apples CoreText that’s also known as Unicode of Death. If you should have been affected and can’t get back into your iMessages then just send that person any random image from your gallery app and you should be back in action.
Depending on how important the feature is to you, you might want to disable iMessage under Settings > Messages > iMessage on your iPhone until Apple releases a patch to fix the issue.
Remember that this could be fun for a joke, but don’t abuse this as it has potential to create trouble.
Thank you Reddit for providing us with this information
