All it takes is two characters from the alphabet of the Indian language Telugu to crash an array of Apple devices.
A new bug has been discovered in iOS 11 that lets people send a specific character that will crash an iPhone and block access to the Messages app in iOS and popular apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Outlook for iOS, and Gmail.
If one of the two symbols is sent to a texting app on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or even Apple Watch, the software immediately crashes. In many cases, it needs to be reinstalled. The bug becomes still more destructive when sent to iMessage, as it will cause the whole device to crash. This is all because of the default font Apple uses.
Many publications have tested the the bug on third party apps. According toTechCrunchit crashed Mail,Twitter, Messages, Slack,Instagram,Facebook, and Jumpcut. However Telegram and Skype appear to be unaffected.
At the time of writing Apple has not made an official statement regarding this problem, and the time frame for a fix is unknown.
There’s reason to get this sorted quickly: Until it’s fixed, a malicious actor could spam these symbols across social media platforms, leading to the mass crashing of apps and Apple devices.
Taken from: Inverse.com By Danny Paez on February 15, 2018
