It sounds like a hoax right? How can setting a particular image as a phone's wallpaper cause it to crash?

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It's happening to lots of Android users.

And it doesn't have to do with malware or a virus or anything -- instead it has to do with the wide range of color present in the image.

The photo is beautiful -- but be aware that trying this out might inadvertently brick your phone.

9to5Google explains why:

According to Popular Mechanics, security experts believe the malfunction happens because of how Android phones understand "color space."

The bug was first reported in May, with users saying the screens on their Samsung or Pixel device immediately turned black and flickered. Some users said to fix the issue, they had to perform a full factory reset on their phones.

"The glitch likely has to with the concept of "color space," or the mathematical models that describe the range of colors in an image," Ken Munro and Dave Lodge, two researchers at the cybersecurity firm Pen Test Partners, told the BBC.

The image that is causing the crash seems to contain colors that are outside of the typical RGB color profile.

"...sometimes you'll see images that aren't in the usual 'Standard RGB' format. It's also possible to deliberately create images that have more colour information than some devices can handle," they said.

There is no official response from Google on the glitch, as per Popular Mechanics.

 

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