Apple has released the iOS 11.2.6 update to fix a critical crashing bug on its devices. It turns out that displaying a very specific character from the Telugu language causes the system to get stuck in a loop; completely locking people out of the app.
The bug seems to affect any Apple-based app that displays text, and doesn’t just stop at iOS. Users have noted that it somehow also applies to the macOS versions of Safari and Messages. Which has only encouraged the troublemakers to send it out to people they know as a joke.
Fortunately, Apple has gotten ahead of the game and managed to release a patch within a week of discovering the problem. The company had promised to resolve the issue before the public release of iOS 11.3. It has also released updates for watchOS, tvOS, and macOS to prevent the bug from affecting those platforms as well.
Apple has had a history of specific character strings causing problems on the iPhone. In 2015, a string of text could disable iMessage, and in 2016 a video caused iPhones to crash – as did character strings in December 2017 and January 2018.
[Source: The Verge]
