iPhone iOS 10 Security News: Prank SMS With Three Emojis Freezes iOS 10 Devices
Recently, a YouTube vlogger revealed a scary prank SMS, which uses just three emojis that will instantly freeze the receiver's mobile device.
Emojis are ideograms and more detailed emoticons that Apple pioneered for mobile messaging. Apple is known for regularly updating their set of emojis, adding more variety and making it more diverse with every patch.
Reports went rife after YouTube channel EverythingApplePro posted a 12-minute video demonstrating the bug. At the beginning of the video, the vlogger can be seen holding two iPhones with one being used to send the prank text message and the other that is meant to receive the message.
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The prank text message only contains three emojis: the white flag, the number zero, and the rainbow. As soon as the message was received on the other phone, it froze instantly without the need to open the SMS. The physical home button and power button both stopped working.
He also showed a conversation that implies when he sent the same message to a group chat, where all the people in the group message had their phones froze. And if it does not sound scary enough, one of the comments on the YouTube video shared that the three-emoji SMS prank messes with Apple Watch in a worse way with no available remedy other then resetting the device.
According to the video, the prank text message messes with older versions of iOS 10. The vlogger mentioned that the prank "will behave differently" for devices with iOS 10.2 or the latest software version. Later in the video, he demonstrated two methods of carrying out the prank message. The first method works on iOS 10 to iOS 10.1.1 while the second method can work for up to iOS 10.2.1.
To ease the worry of many, the vlogger mentioned that the prank message crashes iPhones for three to five minutes only. For pranksters out there, it can be seen in the YouTube video that setting up the trick is not as easy as typing three emojis, though.
According to CNet, Apple declined to comment about the matter.
