Safari Reaper ‘Text Bomb’ Can Hide in Websites to Crash Your iPhone

A security researcher has discovered a new so-called “text bomb” that can cause iOS and other devices to kernel panic and forcibly restart.

Sabri Haddouche (@pwnsdx) on Saturday tweeted a link to a webpage containing a proof-of-concept attack, dubbed “Safari Reaper.”

The webpage contains a small snippet of HTML/CSS that can crash iOS devices — as well as Macs and other devices — if opened in a web browser.

In other words, an impacted device or will freeze up and reboot if the site is visited. In other more mild cases, it won’t cause a reboot but can force a “respring” of the user interface.

How to force restart any iOS device with just CSS?