Beware Of The "Black Dot" Unicode Bug, It Would Crash Message Apps On iOS And Android

According to well-known Youtuber EverythingApplePro , who discovered yet another Unicode bug that is capable of crashing apps and operating ...

According to well-known Youtuber EverythingApplePro, who discovered yet another Unicode bug that is capable of crashing apps and operating systems. The bug, which is called ‘black dot’ bug as its origins on Android due to a bug relating to WhatsApp: it was being spread with the following emoji: <> , and now is appeared on iOS.

Essentially, because the strings contain thousands of hidden invisible Unicode characters, which churns through CPU cycles as the system attempts to process them. Once this specially crafted text sent within Messages, it will result in repeated crashes when the recipient tries to read it - whether reads from left-to-right or right-to-left.

Luckily, the issue can be resolved by simply use 3D Touch on the Messages icon on the Home screen, then choose the option "New Message". For those users who don't use 3D Touch, go to another iCloud synced device and delete the message remotely, or even delete it with Messages on iCloud.

As of now, the bug affects devices that are running iOS 11.4 beta and iOS 11.3, as well as many other software versions, Android devices. Since the bug has been caught by several Youtubers, it's expected that Apple will likely to issue a fix rather sooner than later.

Image NDTV Gadgets