As per recent alerts, a malicious text message which is being circulated on iOS’s iMessage is reportedly making the App useless by freezing it to death. The message, which comes with an attachment, when opened makes the app useless and eventually freeze it. As of now, the message is affecting the iMessage running on iOS 9 to iOS 10.2.1 (beta).
The issue was first spotted by a YouTuber named vincedes13. He also uploaded a video showing how the message makes the iMessage app useless. Further, the only way to get out of the app is to shut it by going to multi-tasking screen. However, that doesn’t solve the problem as opening up the app after that renders it useless again. Moreover, some users even went for a hard reset and got no luck as the app would then show a black screen.
Apple hasn’t come with a statement on this issue as yet but we expect the company to soon roll out an OTA (Over-The-Air) update to fix the issue. The reason behind the app freezing is currently being attributed to the huge size of the malicious message being sent. So, as a step of prevention, we advise you to not open any message which appears suspicious or is too big in size.