How often do you click on those links that your trusted friends send you in private messages? Pretty much all the time, I’m guessing. We all love watching videos online, especially the GIFs and memes and the mash-up videos that have become popular, thanks to the rise of apps like Dubsmash. Watching these videos is fine, of course. Except that, there’s now a new exploit that’s growing increasingly popular.
What does this exploit do?
If you haven’t guessed it already, this exploit will crash your phone. And the only way to get it back to working condition is by hard reset. To do so, you need to hold down the power and the home button at the same time.
What is this exploit?
It comes in the guise of a harmless-looking MP4 video. Once you click on the link, from a messaging app like Messenger or Whatsapp, the video opens up and plays in your default browser. The video will last for around five seconds and once it’s over, you can close it and continue using your iPhone like any other day. However, the video will be playing on loop in the background, slowing down your iPhone for a few seconds before crashing it altogether.
You may not even realize that it’s the video that’s caused your iPhone’s screen to stop responding to your touch because the video exploit will take a while to take its effect.
What’s the fix?
That’s the scariest part. Apple doesn’t seem to have a fix for it yet. Unless you count the only option you have left: hard reset. However, prevention is your next best alternative. Be wary of links that come from your friends. They might not know about the exploit, or they might not use iPhones. Either way, if you’re not so sure of what the video is before clicking on it, you’d do better than to click on it.
