US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — Stories about the “text bombs” that cause the gadget to reboot endlessly have been known for a long time. So, two years ago, a malicious message in the Telugu language (common in India) walked on the Internet, which caused iPhones to reboot. If you doubt their existence, you can go to the GitHub website and see the code for such a bomb with your own eyes.
The basis of this code consists of the emoji of the Italian flag and a specific symbol from the Sindhi alphabet, which is spoken and written in Pakistan and India. Appearing as an incoming notification on devices with iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, this sequence causes a system error, due to which the operating system enters a cycle of endless reboots.
According to the MTAC user who posted the code to the repository, he found out about such a “bomb” from a group chat on Telegram. Files with the code are accompanied by a disclaimer that warns against using the line included in the code for malicious purposes.
The craziest iOS crash text bug 💀 pic.twitter.com/29LJPb67WP
— EverythingApplePro (@EveryApplePro) April 23, 2020
The exact mechanism of this malicious code is not yet known. Apparently, it attacks the CoreText framework, which is used in iOS to work with text and text representations, forcing it to change certain elements to unsupported characters.
How to defend against a “text bomb” is not yet clear. Most likely, a vulnerability fix will appear in the next version of iOS. Currently, users are advised to turn off notifications. If a malicious message has already arrived on your gadget, try sending any other message to it.
Earlier, we wrote that the 91mobiles website has unveiled a batch of new details on the iPhone 12 line, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published an Apple patent for a crease-free flexible screen.
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