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Malicious Video Link Causes iOS Devices to Crash, Require Hard Reset

If you have prank-loving friends, beware of any video links they may send you, as a new malicious video link can cause any iOS device to crash, requiring a hard reset to bring it back to life.

When playing the video in question, all seems well at first, but then iOS gradually begins to bog down, running ever slower until your device freezes completely. A hard reset of the device is the only way to regain normal operation of the device. If you’re wondering how it works, EverythingApplePro has posted a demonstration showing how the exploit works. (It’s not the original video, so don’t fret about that.)

Reports indicate device running iOS versions all the way back to iOS 5 are vulnerable to the exploit, and even devices running the iOS 10.2 beta 3 will power off and show the spinning wheel until the device is hard reset.

A Reddit post by user Riddle says the top level domains hosting the video appear to be vk(dot)com and testtrial.site90(dot)net. However, the video could easily be hosted by other domains, and also be aware of link shortened URLs.

(Via 9to5Mac)

Chris Hauk

Chris is a Senior Editor at Mactrast. He lives somewhere in the deep Southern part of America, and yes, he has to pump in both sunshine and the Internet.