If you’re an iPhone user, here’s something you should be aware of: a newly discovered bug could cause your device to crash just by typing a specific set of characters. Yes, it’s as simple as entering four characters, and your iPhone could briefly stop working.
iPhones are crashing and the reason will shock you. According to a security researcher, typing a specific combination of characters—four, to be exact—can cause iPhones to malfunction. The flaw is a problem, and users should be informed that it can also cause their device to crash because it occurs while they type text. What are the four characters that may be harmful to iPhone users, then? According to the researcher, typing two double quote marks and two colons("::") is sufficient to cause the iPhone, sometimes referred to as Springboard, to crash. The iPhone did crash when we separately entered these characters in the settings area.
Does this bug require your attention right now? In certain aspects, certainly, particularly if you want to use these characters in combination in the iPhone's search box. Although Apple has not responded to any of the public reports about the flaw, the corporation will be monitoring the situation and making sure that iPhone owners have a solution for the crash problem. We thus hope that this character error will be fixed permanently in the upcoming iOS upgrade.
Unlike a 2020 bug that allowed certain characters in a tweet to crash the Twitter app for anyone who viewed it, this bug only affects those who manually type the characters into their device. So, unless you’re intentionally testing it out, you’re unlikely to encounter the issue.
Apple has not yet commented on the bug, but iPhone users might want to avoid typing those characters until a fix is released.
We recommend against using these characters together on iPhones in the meantime if you don't want this little test to develop into anything more for your device. We're hoping that the upcoming iOS version will include a fix, therefore we advise you to keep a look out for the pop-up notification alerting you when Apple releases a new update.