Here's how it works: When a white flag emoji, the number zero and a rainbow ... the three-character combination sent via iMessage as a text can also cause Apple's popular messaging app to freeze ...

The innocent-looking message – which is made up of the Italian flag ... other emoji will work too, with videos showing iPhones reduced to almost not working at all after receiving the text ...

The offending message appears to contain just three characters - a white flag emoji, a “0” and a rainbow emoji. When a text with the three characters is received, an iPhone will become ...