Apple defuses iOS 'text bomb'
The tech giant patches up a security flaw that could cause your iPhone and iPad to crash.
Apple has fixed a problem that could allow a carefully crafted malicious text to freeze your iPhone.
Apple has patched up the "text bomb" security flaw.
On Tuesday, the company released an update to iOS, the software that runs iPhones and iPads, to patch up a "text bomb" called ChaiOS that could cause those devices to crash and delete all your messages.
The bug was reportedly discovered last week by Chicago-based software developer Abraham Masri, who shared a link on Github that, when texted to someone's device, can cause the gadget to misfire.
Finding and patching holes is a never-ending battle for software makers. As software steadily gets more sophisticated, that new complexity also opens the door to new security flaws.
Masri told BuzzFeed he published the bug to alert Apple after he reported the problem on Jan. 15 and didn't get a response from the tech giant about plans for a fix.
The bug I released was to get @Apple's attention. It's just an html file.@Github always hosted jailbreaks (even .ipa files) that might've included malware. I don't understand why you'd ban my account.
— Abraham Masri (@cheesecakeufo) January 17, 2018
Btw, I always report bugs before releasing them.
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.