Beware of This Strange Video that can Crash Your iPhone

A strange new video has been spread rapidly over iMessage this week causing it to gain popularity. This corrupt link will play a five second video and 10 seconds after the video ends, the iOS device will crash. All inputs will become unresponsive and the only way to fix the device is with a hard reset. For those who do not know, a hard reset is simply holding the Home button and the power button at the same time for 5-10 seconds, however on the iPhone 7 and 7 plus, the power button and the volume down button need to be held down for the reset.

Two tech editorials, The Verge and EverythingApplePro, have tested the .mp4 file’s effects on numerous iOS devices and confirmed that it will crash any device running iOS 5 and higher, including the most recent updates of iOS 10.1 and the iOS 10.2 beta. This video takes advantage of a bug in iOS and renders it unusable until a hard reset takes place. According to the source 9to5Mac the video has no long-term effects on an iOS device if played, only the minor inconvenience of having to reset the phone.

There is no doubt that Apple has recognized this problem and is working to fix this issue in their next software update. Remember, be cautious of any links you receive, or they could negatively affect your devices.