WhatsApp “text bomb” is freezing phones, not destroying them

Pranksters are exploiting a bug within the WhatsApp messaging app that allows them to freeze the phones belonging to others via a crafty message.

The “text bomb” works by sending a text message to a victim that comes bundled with thousands of invisible instructions that cannot be seen by the recipient. In one example of the text bomb, the invisible instructions continually instruct the receiving phone handset to switch between left aligned text and right aligned text, despite no actual text being outputted between the instructions.

While phone handsets should be able to follow such instructions without problem, because pranksters have copied the same instructions thousands of times over, the handset becomes overloaded and the WhatsApp app typically crashes.

The most prolific example is a text message on WhatsApp that simply says “This is very Interesting!” followed by a laughing emoji. Should the recipient of the message click the ‘Read more’ option to expand the message, the invisible instructions are executed, and the app crashes.

Another version of the message “If you touch the black point then your whatsapp will hang” followed by a black dot. Again, clicking the message causes the app to crash.

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Is this a virus?

These “text bombs” (as they’re referred to) are not really viruses, and act more like an annoying bug. There is no coding or “intelligent” programming here. It is simply overloading a phone with useless instructions. At the time of writing, the WhatsApp platform allows text messages to execute invisible instructions when a recipient taps them, and pranksters are exploiting that by overrunning the phone with useless instructions until it crashes. It’s more like a denial of service attack than a virus. Ultimately though, it’s a bug. And WhatsApp is expected to come up with a fix for it.

Does it “destroy” my phone?

Despite some hyped or exaggerated headlines from certain media outlets, this doesn’t “destroy” your phone, nor is it particularly harmful. It’s more annoying. Sometimes the recipient will need to restart WhatsApp, other times they need to do a restart on their phone. Other than that, there should be no real damage done.

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What should I do if I receive a text message like this?

Don’t tap it, as that allows the invisible code to execute. You should delete the message (or the thread.)

If you do tap it and your phone crashes, just restart your device and delete the thread once it boots back up.