Glitch in Apple’s iOS makes the iPhone/iPad crash and reboot when a specially crafted non-Latin script is sent in a text message to the owner

Several Redditors have discovered a unique bug called as effective power hack text message in Apple’s iOS system which can be used to send a specially text message to the iPhone/iPad and send his/her iPhone/iPad crashing or rebooting.

The effective power hacking bug was posted on Reddit cause the Apple's iOS to choke when it receives the message thereby crashing or rebooting the device as long as the recipient is not viewing their message history at the time.

A Reddit user, Sanlansam first posted a thread regarding this iphone text message hack bug which is given below :

If you send the following:
effective.  Power لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗
Send that to someone with an iPhone it turns their phone off
To an iphone, it restarts their phone.
HOW?!?

As soon as somebody sends a message containing the above text, it is displayed as a banner alert or notification on the lockscreen of the iPhone/iPad or iPod Touch. The iOS then attempts to abbreviate the text with an ellipsis. If the ellipsis is placed in the middle of a set of non-Latin script characters, including Arabic, Marathi and Chinese, it causes the system to crash and the phone to reboot.

Not all non-Latin messages can crash the iPhone. According to the Reddit thread only a specific string of text to be sent within an iMessage or SMS can cause the crash or reboot.

Glitch in Apple’s iOS makes the iPhone/iPad crash and reboot when a specially crafted non-Latin script is sent in a text message to the owner

Even the non-Latin characters have to be placed in correct ellipsis to make the iPhone crash. Right now the iphone text message hack bug is being used by iPhone users as a prank to crash their friends and dear ones iPhones/iPads and iPod Touch but some users have reported that after the attack, they can no longer access the messages.

[–]cock_a_doodle_doo 29 points 12 hours ago
My friend sent me just "لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗" and now I can't open my message app. Anyway to fix it? I tried to reset my phone and it didn't work.

It is quite possible that cyber criminals can turn this bug into some kind of vector to attack the iPhone users. The simple solution for disabling this bug is to turn of the notification feature for lock screen from the settings.  Go to Settings--> Notifications--> Messages--> and change to no notifications



Glitch in Apple’s iOS makes the iPhone/iPad crash and reboot when a specially crafted non-Latin script is sent in a text message to the owner It seems that Apple Watch is not affected by this bug, so if it absolutely necessary, you can turn on the notification via Apple Watch.