iPhone glitch allows people to crash your phone by sending a simple text message

A glitch has been discovered with Apple's iPhone which allows anyone to crash your phone by simply sending a text message.

The malicious text message - made up of a string of non-English characters - crashes the Messages app and sometimes triggers a full reboot of the handset.

Victims have taken to social media to vent their frustration after cyber mischief-makers started deliberately targeting their phones.

The string of characters is so obscure it would be virtually impossible for someone to type it out by mistake.

The problem appears to be caused by the way Apple's iOS operating system displays certain characters, according to reports.

Mark James, security specialist at anti-virus firm ESET said: "I am sure we have all had our desktop machines reboot after a seemingly random event has triggered the dreaded reboot. These mobile computers we call phones today have the same core instructions - if all else fails then reboot.

"This does not necessarily mean it's a security flaw or indeed an exploitable bug but Apple will none the less try and rectify this as soon as they possibly can."

However, Tim Erkin, director of product management at cyber security firm Tripwire, said: "The ability to remotely disable someone's iPhone could be useful in targeted attacks. Imagine if an organisation's information security team was suddenly unable to communicate while an attack on their organisation was being carried out."

Many have reported that by turning off notification banners they have been able to avoid being affected by the bug, and that sending a photo to the contact who sent you the message, then clearing the conversation history, will remove the flaw.

A spokesman for Apple said: “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.”