New iPhone warning: Typing these four characters could crash your device after bug discovered

A web security expert has warned iPhone users about a newly discovered bug that could cause Apple products to crash

A web security expert has warned iPhone users about a newly discovered bug that could cause Apple products to crash - and all it takes to trigger the bug is for users to type four characters.

Earlier this week, security researcher Konstantin (@kwpn) took to social media to reveal iPhone and iPads in particular are at risk, writing: “Apparently, you can crash your [Apple mobile user interface] iPhone Springboard pretty easily.”

Typing the four characters “”:: (two double quotation marks and two colons) into the App library can cause devices to crash and then reload the lock screen.

The App library is accessed by swiping left several times or using the search bar in the Settings app.

The tech researcher discovered that in some cases putting four characters into your phone causes the screen to flash black before the lock screen appears.

According to experts, the characters trigger a bug in the latest version of the iOS 17 and beta iOS 18. This is due to an issue in how the Apple software interprets the punctuation marks together.

“On your iPhone, swipe left past all your Home Screen pages to get to App Library. Then search for ‘::,’.

“Do at your own risk,” Konstantin warned users.

A web security expert has warned iPhone users about a newly discovered bug that could cause Apple products to crash.

Other iPhone users responded, claiming that the bug could be triggered by just three characters, two quotation marks and a colon, followed by any other character.

According to experts speaking with tech media outlet TechCrunch, the bug isn’t thought to be a security issue.

iOS security researcher Ryan Stortz, who analysed the bug, told TechCrunch “it’s not a security bug”.

Security experts believe despite activating a crash, it isn’t likely to cause damage to your device.

The new iOS update, 17.6.2 should likely fix the bugs.

It’s not the first time a combination of characters has triggered bugs on Apple devices.

In 2018, “text bombs”, malicious messages that contained Unicode characters that can impact the operation of a device or app plagued iPhone users for years before the bug was fixed.