There have been many cases where we have seen smartphones getting crashed due to malicious messages but now there is a malicious message for PlayStation 4 console that reportedly is causing the console to crash.
According to certain users on Reddit and social media, they are receiving a special, coded message that is enough to crash the console.
Some users say that to clean up the whole mess, they had to factory reset their PlayStation 4 console. This must be a really nasty bug which has taken users on the last stage which is to factory reset.
This message is also used by online gamers who to disrupt their gaming rivals send this message to them.
Can this be fixed?
The news just broke today so, Sony has yet to confirm this bug and respond to this. This looks like a software bug which can be fixed by a software update and protect the console further against similar bugs.
How can this be avoided?
To avoid this bug from affecting your console, you should set your PlayStation 4 and its iOS and Android apps to accept messages from already confirmed friends or block messages completely. This can be done by visiting Account management > Privacy Settings.
If you have already received such a message and are affected by this then you can reboot in Safe Mode and then rebuild the database so, it shouldn’t affect your data.
This is the first time that we are hearing about a console affected by a hidden program code inside a message. We have heard about smartphones getting affected but not consoles.