A bug discovered in Apple's iOS is causing Messages to crash automatically when a certain text is received.
If an iPhone user receives the text, containing a mixture of specific words and characters, while their handset is locked the bug also forces their phone to reboot.
Unsurprisingly, the text message content is being shared on social media, with people complaining of being repeatedly sent the message by mischievous friends.
The message contains the word ‘Power’ as well as Arabic and Marathi characters and the Chinese character meaning 'redundant'.
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It’s only effective in crashing Messages and rebooting an iPhone if sent from another Apple handset running iOS, 9to5Mac reported.
Apple fan site MacRumours additionally said they have tested the message and revealed it will crash any iPhone running the latest iOS 8.3 operating system.
Apple told MailOnline: 'We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update.'
However, it didn't specify when this will be.
Because the characters used in the message are specific, most people will not experience any problems accidentally.
And anyone who does, was likely picked out as a target, by either someone malicious or by friends as some sort of hi-tech annoying prank.
Thousands of people have taken to Twitter to share the text, as well as bemoan being sent it by tiresome friends.
Reactions range from anger, such as 'Send me the text message that turns my iPhone off and I will turn yours off by throwing it out of a window!' to fear: 'Someone sent me that stupid message that turns your iPhone off and it messed up my phone so I can't get in my messages. Someone help please.'
While some may find the prank tedious, the bug has panicked other users who have reset their handsets in desperation to get them working again.
It's not known who made or discovered it in the first place. However, there are some relatively easy ways to fix handsets.
Victims of the bug can ask the same person, via another form of communication, who sent them the malicious message to send it again - effectively cancelling out the bug.
This works well if it's a friend messing around.
They can also reportedly send themselves a message from a Mac computer, one via Siri or a picture message to reverse the chaos caused by the original text.
A Reddit user called sickestdancer98 claims the bug works because of how banner notifications process Unicode text.
‘The banner briefly attempts to present the incoming text and then "gives up" thus the crash,’ he writes.
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