Pierluigi Paganini
January 19, 2017
A new Apple’s iOS bug was discovered in the community of mobile tech experts, it can be exploited to crash iPhone or iPad devices by just sending an Emoji text message.
Several users are already reporting the issue and the popular YouTube EverythingApplePro published a video proof-of-concept for the bug. In the video is reported an example of the sequence of characters that temporarily freeze an iPhone causing the device restarting.
The sequence is composed of a white Flag emoji, the digit “0” and a Rainbow emoji. The issue is linked to the way that iOS creates the rainbow flag emoji that is not an official emoji, Apple creates the rainbow flag Emoji by combining the code behind the two white flag and rainbow emoji. Apple iOS joins them by using a hidden character known as a VS16. The iPhone attempts to combine the two emoji, but is unable to because of the zero in the middle.
Source http://www.magazine49.com/archives/48106
There are also other ways to crash the Apple mobile device, another hack leverages the same characters used in a contact file that is sent to an iMessage contact via the iCloud’s sharing feature.
“Both the methods mentioned above will crash and iPhone or iPad to varying degrees, although the simple text string sent via a standard iMessage appears to affect iPhones and iPads running iOS 10.1 or below.” reported The Hacker News. “However, the boobytrapped contact card affects all versions of iOS 10, including Apple’s latest iOS 10.2 operating system.”
Users have to upgrade their version to the last one in order to prevent such kind of attacks.
In November the EverythingApplePro reported that most of the Apple devices were crashing when the owners play a video. An iPhone-freezing video circulated online, when users played it in the Safari browser the iPhones slow down until they stop working altogether.
The iPhone-freezing video was first discovered by EverythingApplePro, it is a short .mp4 clip of someone standing by a bed with the words “Honey” written across the screen.
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(Security Affairs – iPhone-freezing Emoji text message, hacking)
