This random message notification will cause your iPhone to crash

Your friends can crash your iPhone. Michael Simon reports

EverythingApplePro has uncovered a strange character-emoji string that will crash iPhones running the latest version of iOS. The bug only appears to affect iOS 13.4.1 and involved a string of Sindhi language characters you’re unlikely to receive unless someone’s trying to mess

with you. But with cabin fever setting in from our nationwide coronavirus lockdown, it’s possible your friends might try it out on you.

As bugs go, it’s more of a nuisance than a security risk, but it will cause your iPhone to become unresponsive and possibly crash when the notification arrives. The bug isn’t limited to texting either. Any notification containing the string of characters can potentially lock up an iPhone, as EverythingApplePro realized after tweeting about the bug.

The bug is confirmed to have been fixed in iOS 13.4.5, so if you want to fix it you can sign up for the Public Beta ( fave.co/2YL7Zr9). Otherwise, turning off notifications for messaging apps will mitigate the issue.