Hackers starting to make progress with iOS 5.1 jailbreak

We haven’t really heard much on the jailbreak front since iOS 5.1 came out. The software update patched all previous exploits, meaning anyone who upgraded, lost their ability to jailbreak (well, A4 devices can still be jailbroken).

But we have good news today for the folks that have updated their devices to 5.1. Pod2g, who was largely responsible for Absinthe and Corona, says that he now has all of the exploits necessary to start working on a new jailbreak…

The hacker posted the following message to his Twitter account this morning: “News: we have all exploits required to do a new jailbreak. I’m working on bypassing ASLR at bootup.” ASLR, which stands for Address Space Layout Randomization, is a complex security method used to randomize data on the RAM to help prevent exploits from taking control of the system.

Don’t get too excited though. As Chpwn reminds us, just because all of the exploits are found, does not mean we will see a jailbreak anytime soon. In fact, the hacker says that the new jailbreak is still “likely months away from working at all.”

The good news here is that hackers are making some progress. And judging by how quickly they were able to exploit the new iPad, we are assuming that any jailbreak designed for iOS 5.1 will work across multiple devices.