I received a text notification from an unknown number earlier today. I’m usually suspicious of such things, but clicked the notification. The messages app loaded, but displayed a blank white screen until I closed the app. After doing so, there was no evidence of the message notification or the message itself, in any of the message categories (known, unknown, all, deleted messages, etc).
This is on an iPhone 14 Pro Max using a fully up to date device running iOS 18.3.1 .
Has anyone else experienced this? I am hoping that the group might be able to offer insight into whether this is a bug worth reporting to Apple, or an attack of some sort? I am aware that at least one zero-click messaging bug was recently patched in iOS. I rebooted my device, and I’m waiting for the security delay to expire so I can reset my iCloud password. I have 2FA and stolen device protection switched on.
(please disregard link to example.com ; my Lemmy client wouldn’t allow a text-only post without an image or a link).
I’ve had that happen quite a few times over the years with iOS devices. The only thing I’ve ever been able to think of is that it was a carrier message that caused the notification. Carriers do sometimes send SMS messages that aren’t normal messages (for updating carrier settings, activation, and who knows what else).
Thank you! Even if this is harmless, the handling doesn’t seem to be very elegant, so I’ll have a go at filing a bug report. I’ve changed the notification type to “persistent” for messages going forward, so if this happens again I’ll be able to capture the phone number of the message.
