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Short video is crashing Apple devices

Nov 25, 2016 6:15 am

Dianne de Guzman is reporting in the Times Union iPhone and iPad users are being advised to use caution when clicking on randomly received links via email or text. Reddit users and a number of technology blogs are reporting that an .mp4 clip circulating on the Internet has the ability to crash an iPhone in roughly 10 seconds. Once clicked, a corrupted video loads and begins to play. The Apple device then slows to the point of freezing and it eventually requires a hard reset. The Verge ran a test and found iPhones running iOS 10.1 and beta versions of 10.2 are vulnerable. A further test by The Telegraph found that versions going back to iOS 5 are also at risk. The content of the video itself is rather benign -- a man briefly appears and performs a magic trick with a deck of cards. Android and Windows users have not reported problems with the video. Read the full story in the Times Union.