PSA: New Character Bug in Messages Causing iOS Devices to Crash [Updated]

[MacRumors]

There appears to be a new character-linked bug in Messages, Mail, and other apps that can cause the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch to crash when receiving a specific string of characters.

Image from Twitter​

In this particular case, the character string involves the Italian flag emoji along with characters in the Sindhi language, and it appears the system crash happens when an incoming notification is received with the problem-causing characters.

Based on information shared on Reddit, the character string began circulating on Telegram, but has also been found on Twitter.

These kind of device-crashing character bugs surface every so often and sometimes become widespread, leading to a significant number of people ending up with a malfunctioning iPhone, iPad, or Mac. In 2018, for example, a character string in the Telugu language circulated around the internet, crashing thousands of devices before Apple addressed the problem in an iOS update.

There is often no way to prevent these characters from causing crashes and freezes when received from a malicious person, and crashes caused through notifications often cause operating system re-springs and in some cases, a need to restore a device in DFU mode.

MacRumors readers should be aware that such a bug is circulating, and for those who are particularly concerned, as this bug appears to impact notifications, turning off notifications may mitigate the effects. Apple typically fixes these character bugs within a few days to a week.

Update: According to MacRumors reader Adam, who tested the bug on a device running iOS 13.4.5, the issue is fixed in the second beta of that update.

Article Link: PSA: New Character Bug in Messages Causing iOS Devices to Crash [Updated]

 

[btrach144]

wow, lots of critical bugs coming out of Cupertino lately. Mail security bug and now this.

 

[ghanwani]

The person working on this system was pulled off for the COVID tracking project before they could finish testing it.

 

[orbital~debris]

​

[…] significant number of people ending up with a bugged iPhone, iPad, or Mac […]

To aid comprehension/avoid misinterpretation, it might help to re-word this part.

‘Bugged’ can commonly be interpreted as ‘tapped’/‘wiretapped’.

 

[Schranke]

I am a little fascinated with how these type of bugs happens. Like if you try to set your calendar back before a certain date.
If any one is interested in how this works (assuming it’s the same as 4-5 years ago) here is a link to Tom Scott explaining it. And the date bug here.

 

[cmaier]

Received FROM a malicious person. Not BY.

 

[Lucas284]

Great. Looking forward to receive texts like these again!

 

[Joniz]

Is that why my phone keeps crashing.

I must get that message five, six times a day.

 

[globalist]

It's amazing how anyone even finds these sort of things to begin with. Are there people literally typing all sorts of crap in messages to see what sticks?

 

[ctg7w6]

It's amazing how anyone even finds these sort of things to begin with. Are there people literally typing all sorts of crap in messages to see what sticks?

That's what I came here to post, it is so bizarre. Or brilliant. Or... time consuming? I don't know.

 

[Joniz]

It's amazing how anyone even finds these sort of things to begin with. Are there people literally typing all sorts of crap in messages to see what sticks?

What else you got to do these days?

 

[Timothy Leo Crowley]

wow, lots of critical bugs coming out of Cupertino lately. Mail security bug and now this.

Bugs like this happen to all complex systems. Always have, always will. Apple finds and fixes them fast.

 

[mi7chy]

Nothing new really. iMessage has had a long history of these vulnerabilities. If you want security and reliability you use something else for messaging, mail, etc.

 

[riverfreak]

I really wish Apple would treat your contact list as a whitelist and treat everything else as spam, both calls and messages. Heck, I’d even extend that to email, too.

 

[xpxp2002]

It's amazing how anyone even finds these sort of things to begin with. Are there people literally typing all sorts of crap in messages to see what sticks?

Fuzzing, probably.

 

[falainber]

First corona-virus and now that?

 

[coachgq]

Seein’ as how I writes in ‘Merican I should be juuuuuust fine!

 

[now i see it]

While we've heard of certain strings of characters causing re-springs on earlier iOS versions, (which is a minor annoyance) I've never heard of an iPhone getting bricked by it or requiring a system restore.

 

[konqerror]

It's amazing how anyone even finds these sort of things to begin with. Are there people literally typing all sorts of crap in messages to see what sticks?

People use computer programs to automatically spam crap to see what fails. As pointed out that's called "fuzzing", something Apple apparently hasn't been doing.

Fuzzing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

How hard can it possibly be to just have something like:

try {
    renderText();
} catch (Exception e) {
    renderUnprintable();
    reportToApple(e);
}

I know, that's Java and Apple would actually use Swift, but still, how hard can it possibly be to just not let the exception through?

 

[iStorm]

I really wish Apple would treat your contact list as a whitelist and treat everything else as spam, both calls and messages. Heck, I’d even extend that to email, too.

You can pretty much already do this. You can have unknown numbers be sent to voicemail, and unknown texts be filtered into a separate list. You'll get no notifications for either these.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

People use computer programs to automatically spam crap to see what fails. As pointed out that's called "fuzzing", something Apple apparently hasn't been doing.

Fuzzing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Right - this seems pretty easy to unit-test. Just use Chaos Monkey or something and have it throw every possible combination of characters at it.

 

[frikova]

Great. Looking forward to receive texts like these again!

Dude you just need better friends and contacts.

 

[dallastigers]

You can pretty much already do this. You can have unknown numbers be sent to voicemail, and unknown texts be filtered into a separate list. You'll get no notifications for either these.

Has the text setting or functionality changed?

It used to just do separate lists for iMessages not texts which is our problem.

 

[Analog Kid]

Are any of the 32 million Sindhi people members of Mac Rumors? I’d love to know if that combination of characters has any meaning, or if it’s just a random combination that someone realized causes headaches...