A security researcher on Mastodon recently found an iOS bug that causes iPhones to crash when specific keyboard characters are entered into Spotlight Search or the App Library. This issue is triggered by typing `””:` followed by any fourth character. The good news is that it doesn’t appear to pose a security threat, as it cannot be exploited remotely and only affects users who manually type these characters.
At the moment, the bug appears to only affect iPhones running on iOS 17, and typing these characters out causes the Home Screen interface, also known as Springboard, to crash and perform a soft reboot. However, with the introduction of iOS 18 and iOS 18.1, the issue is less severe, causing only a brief freeze in Spotlight Search rather than a full crash of the Springboard.
To clarify further, the bug specifically impacts the Spotlight Search and App Library search bar when used from the Home Screen. It does not affect other areas of the iPhone or other iOS functionalities. This isn’t necessarily new, as similar text string issues have been detected in the past, such as the “Effective Power” bug in 2015, which was used to crash iPhones through text messages.
At the time of writing, Apple has yet to comment on the iOS bug, although suffice it to say, it would patch the issues in due time. And again, while this particular bug is unusual, it the issue is unlikely to cause any sort of critical disruption.
(Source: 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, Mastodon)
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