Malicious black dot bug jumps from WhatsApp to iPhone

The WhatsApp that recently affected Android mobile phones has now jumped to iOS devices.

According to appleinsider.com the bug which first appeared on Android versions of the chat application now also affects iPhones.

A message with a black dot appears to cause the Messages application to crash, similar to the one that disabled WhatsApp on Android phones.

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Even if the user forcibly closes the Messages app, the issue will persist.

Unlike the WhatsApp crash where you would have to tap on the black dot to crash the application, in iOS just opening the message causes the application to crash.

The black dot is based on a Unicode text bug where thousands of characters are hidden. Your device tries to read the text but it consumes so much memory that the device application crashes.

One fix is to make sure you get the message off the screen so that it doesn't lock up your device.

Have Siri send a series of messages to the person who sent the black dot to you so that their original message is off your screen.

Delete the conversation immediately.

Apple has yet to issue a fix for the bug.

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