UK Edition
iPhone bug will break the Messages app with a single text - here's how to fix it
A new bug that disables the Messages app on any iPhone by sending a single text message has been discovered.
The flaw renders iOS devices incapable of opening the Message app, making it impossible to read texts or iMessages, and the app continues to crash even when closing it or if you've rebooted the phone.
The bug involves sending a vCard - a transferable Address Book contact - with so many lines of code that the Messages app cannot process it.
When Messages opens the message it tries to open the vCard, which has thousands of lines of malicious code compared to a couple of hundred on a regular contact, and freezes the app with a white screen.
Because Messages always tries to open the most recent text message when it is loaded, it will keep trying to open the malicious message even when the app is closed or the whole phone is rebooted.
The text, discovered by hacker vincedes3, bears a similarity to the "Effective Power" text of last year that would crash phones with a line of Arabic text and a video bug discovered last month. Apple typically fixes these bugs quickly in updates to iOS.
How to fix it
If you've been affected, all is not lost. You simply have to use one of a couple of fixes to take the message off the top of your inbox.
The easiest way is to click this link, which we have tested, to open the window for sending a new message, pressing cancel and deleting the offending message.
Alternatively, you can send yourself a message in Siri, or ask someone else to, which will allow you to open the new message instead of the malicious one.