PsychoTea’s iOS 11-12.1.2 kernel exploit for A7-A9 devices now released, detailed writeup imminent

There’ve been so many kernel exploit releases for the iOS platform as of late that our heads are still spinning, but that’s pleasant news if you’re a jailbreak aficionado, because it gives our respected jailbreak tool developers more resources to work with.

The latest kernel exploit reportedly comes by way of hacker PsychoTea, and it has been named machswap. The exploit appears to be viable on all A7-A9 devices running iOS 11.0-12.1.2, which could make it a worthwhile candidate for modern jailbreak tools such as Electra or unc0ver.

Citing the official GitHub page, machswap was jointly discovered and released by renowned security researchers @S0rryMyBad and Brandon Azad, both of which are responsible for releasing high-profile iOS 12-centric exploits in recent memory.

Furthermore, the structure of this exploit is purportedly based upon the task_swap_mach_voucher bug (CVE-2019-6225) that was fixed in iOS 12.1.3, and the exploit drew much of its inspiration from @s1guza’s v0rtex exploit.

Most handsets in the A7-A9 range are considered “4K” devices, and as you might recall, these can be partially-jailbroken on iOS 12 with Pwn20wnd’s unc0ver jailbreak tool. This is achieved with tihmstar’s v3ntex exploit, but this newer machswap exploit is said to have a much higher success rate, which means it could potentially improve the current jailbreak circumstances.

It remains to be seen if the new machswap exploit will be utilized by any of the contemporary jailbreak tools, but a full writeup about the exploit and how it works is allegedly in the works and will be released in the future (no ETA provided as of now).

Are you excited about all the exploit developments for iOS 12 as of late? Discuss in the comments section below.