An exploit that causes both Macs and iOS devices to crash was discovered yesterday, reports 9to5Mac. A specific sequence of Arabic characters causes an error that will crash any application that uses the WebKit engine in either Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) or iOS 6.

When sent via text message, iMessage, Messages, or typed in Safari, the sequence of characters will cause apps to crash.

dosexploit

This bug does not work on any other operating systems and does not allow anyone else to access your computer remotely because of it, but being a recipient (or even sender) of these characters may make your Messages app unusable, cause Safari/Chrome to crash, or not allow for scanning of SSIDs (if the string is broadcasting as a Wifi network name).

Apple has fixed the exploit in both iOS 7 and Mavericks (OS X 10.9), which means people running those operating systems are not vulnerable. All other users can be affected by the issue, which has apparently existed for more than six months.

Top Rated Comments

nagromme Avatar
125 months ago
Can you paste the text in here for us to see.

:D:D

If you even see a screenshot, you will die in seven days :eek:
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
centauratlas Avatar
125 months ago
Can you paste the text in here for us to see.

:D:D
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
petsounds Avatar
125 months ago
FWIW, Firefox does not crash - they must be using their own text engine. Safari and Chrome do.

My bigger question is, why is this not a front-page story, while a story about (what is basically an ad for) SimCity is?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
spazzcat Avatar
125 months ago
This seems like a bug then an exploit? If you could then access a users computer or phone then it would be an exploit?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
H2SO4 Avatar
125 months ago
How do people even find stuff like this???
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
FirstNTenderbit Avatar
125 months ago
/buys roll of foil

/makes foil hat

/logs into MR to make post


Apple will not fix this vulnerability because they want to increase the adoption rate of Mavericks and iOS7

/wraps iPad in foil
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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