CVE-2015-1157

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 5.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2015-05-28 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-17

Description

CoreText in Apple iOS 8.x through 8.3 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (reboot and messaging disruption) via crafted Unicode text that is not properly handled during display truncation in the Notifications feature, as demonstrated by Arabic characters in (1) an SMS message or (2) a WhatsApp message.

Affected products

Apple Iphone Os: 8.0, 8.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.1, 8.1.2, 8.1.3 (+2)
Apple iTunes for Windows: through 12.2
macOS: through 10.0.3

References

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/27/how-to-fix-ios-text-message-bug-crash-reboot/
http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2015/Jun/msg00001.html
http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2015/Jun/msg00002.html
http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2015/Sep/msg00003.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT204941
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT204942
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/apple-ios-bug-sees-message-app-crash-iphone-reboot-simply-by-receiving-message-1503083
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/37e8c1/malicious_text_message/
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/37enow/about_the_latest_iphone_security_vulnerability/
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37edde/eli5_how_that_text_you_can_send_to_friends_turns/
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/75491
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1032408

Get alerted when CVE-2015-1157 or the next vulnerability affects your stack