Not even 24 hours after the initial public beta release of the checkm8 exploit-based checkra1n jailbreak tool, the checkra1n team has already launched its first bug fix update dubbed v0.9.1.
The newest version of checkra1n was announced only minutes ago via the checkra1n team’s official Twitter account:
The checkra1n team officially released the checkm8 bootrom exploit-based checkra1n jailbreak tool this weekend as a public beta to the masses, and while we’d seriously recommend holding off until the tool comes out of beta, we’d totally understand if you’re a bit antsy to go hands-on with things right now.
In this tutorial, we’ll be showing you how to use the checkra1n jailbreak tool to liberate a supported iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Following several weeks’ worth of electrifying teasers, hacker Luca Todesco officially unveiled checkra1n, a brand-new jailbreak utility based on @axi0mX’s new checkm8 bootrom exploit for A5-A11 devices. Todesco presented the new jailbreak after taking the stage at POC2019 in Seoul, South Korea on Friday, just as he said he would, but subtle issues delayed the original launch expectation by a few days.
Checkra1n is a precedent-setting jailbreak the likes of which we have not seen since limera1n on the A4-equipped iPhone 4. Checkra1n isn’t untethered like limera1n was, but it utilizes an exploit that can’t be patched by Apple with any traditional software update, which commendably means that impacted handsets can be jailbroken for life regardless of software version.
Hacker and checkra1n team member Luca Todesco took the stage at POC2019 in Seoul, South Korea early Friday morning to talk about checkra1n, an upcoming checkm8 exploit-based jailbreak tool that would work with A5-A11 devices. But perhaps more intriguingly, sporadic teasers indicated that the tool would be released sometime after his presentation there.
The last official update we have from Todesco himself is that the checkra1n release was delayed longer than expected following the presentation, but it was still supposed to launch sometime today. With the day now over and still no official checkra1n jailbreak launch at the time of this writing, you wouldn’t be alone if you were twiddling your thumbs and wondering what was happening.
If you’ve been following the development of the checkm8-based checkra1n jailbreak all this time, then you’ll be excited to hear that one of the project’s most vocal developers, Luca Todesco, took the stage at POC2019 in Seoul, South Korea to discuss the jailbreak and reveal particularly captivating details about the checkra1n team’s members, long-term plans, and more.
Todesco entitled his Keynote presentation “The One Weird Trick SecureROM Hates,” and from what we can gather, the checkra1n team is comprised of the following members, many of which might be familiar to veteran jailbreakers:
The upcoming checkm8 exploit-based checkra1n jailbreak has been making rounds in headlines over the last couple of weeks, with some of the most exciting news involving tweak injection on iOS 13. But as you might recall, a recent teaser also showed that the checkra1n jailbreak would support several package managers, including Cydia and Zebra.
People were particularly excited to see support for Zebra in addition to the tried and true Cydia package manager, but it begged the question about compatibility with other popular package managers, including Installer and Sileo, just to name a few.
With a resource as powerful as @axi0mX’s checkm8 bootrom exploit floating around in the wild, it’s should come as no surprise to anyone that prominent members of the jailbreak community are actively working on tools that take advantage of it. One of the most significant of those is checkra1n, a project that is currently being spearheaded by renowned hacker and Yalu jailbreak lead developer Luca Todesco.
It’s been a little over a week since we last heard anything new about checkra1n, but based on what we saw at the time, it would seem things are falling into place quite nicely. Now, a new Tweet shared Sunday afternoon by the official checkra1n Twitter page reveals what appears to be working package managers installed on an iPhone X, iPhone SE, and a seventh-generation iPod touch.
Just over a week ago, well-respected hacker and security researcher Luca Todesco took to Twitter to tease an all-new custom boot logo and frame buffer concept for checkra1n, a purported jailbreak utility that would be based on the recently-released checkm8 bootrom exploit from @axi0mX. Fortunately, the teasers haven’t stopped there.
Just this weekend, the official checkra1n Twitter page teased an image of what appears to be both a seventh-generation iPod touch and an iPhone SE – each running iOS 13 – with the checkra1n jailbreak app present on the Home screen.
If you’ve been paying any attention to the jailbreak community recently, then you’ve undoubtedly caught wind about the new checkm8 bootrom exploit.
Given how checkm8 is a bootrom exploit, it can’t be patched with a software update, and it works on all A5-A11 devices up to and including the iPhone X. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise to anyone that avid jailbreak developers are attempting to get their hands dirty with it.
The tides of the jailbreak community forever changed for the better on Friday when hacker and security researcher @axi0mX released checkm8, the first publicly-released bootrom exploit for iOS-powered devices since the iPhone 4 in 2010. Captivatingly, checkm8 works on a significant number of handsets ranging from the antiquated iPhone 4s to the not-so-old iPhone X.
Checkm8 is, in and of itself, an exploit. That said, it’s not a jailbreak, but rather a powerful tool that jailbreak developers could use to devise a USB-based tethered or semi-tethered jailbreak tool for A5-A11 devices. Given how recently checkm8 was released, it should come as no surprise to anyone that public jailbreak tools don’t yet utilize the exploit, but that hasn’t stopped some talented hackers from flexing their l33t dexterities:
Anyone familiar with the jailbreak scene knows that Luca Todesco sports l33t hacking skills, but the security researcher reaffirmed those skills this week after sharing a demonstration video of what appears to be a hacked iPhone X-style device running the eighth developer beta of iOS 13.
The video, embedded below for your viewing pleasure, showcases what appears to be a WebKit-based software bug at work:
It was only a week ago that security researcher iBSparkes teased the Cydia package manager running on an iPhone with the first developer beta of iOS 13 installed on it, but as it would seem, that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Apple deployed the second developer beta of iOS 13 just yesterday afternoon, and a new teaser shared just this morning by security researcher and Yalu jailbreak developer Luca Todesco appears to show a working tfp0 exploit running on it: