People are passing around a link that causes your iPhone to crash if you click it

Flickr/Andrew Mager

A website link is making the rounds today that causes your iPhone or iPad to crash if you click it. The link in question — which we've decided not to link to so you don't accidentally click it — also causes the Safari web browser to crash on Macs.

For some Apple devices, clicking on the link can even cause your device to reboot entirely. Unfortunately, convincing people to click on that link has become something of an internet "prank" recently.

The website's name is both fitting and telling — Crashsafari.com — but that can easily be disguised using a link-shortener like Bit.ly. The ability to mask the URL's actual name has led to plenty of accidental clicks, with people sharing the shortened link on social networking sites as a joke. While the site is specifically meant to crash Safari, those running other browsers should also beware, as it seems like this prank isn't always Safari-specific. 

This isn't the first time a bug like this has happened on iOS. In May of 2015, sending a specific set of Arabic characters would cause the recipient's phone to crash.

So how do these buggy links work? The difference here is the May bug exploited the iPhone operating system's ability to render text. In the case of Crashsafari.com, going to the link above takes you to a website which runs a tiny bit of code to overload one of the APIs (Application Program Interface), causing the phone to crash.

Here's what it looks like.

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/691651237532581893
FSecure: RT 5ean5ullivan: Crashing my iPod touch. #CrashSafari pic.twitter.com/fdd7Nx4Nwt

Aside from potentially losing any unsaved work or your progress in any games running in the background of your phone, clicking on the link doesn't do any lasting damage. That being said, it's always advisable not to click any sketchy-looking links shared on social media.

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