PsychoTea’s new machswap kernel exploit for A7-A11 devices running iOS 11.0-12.1.2 has been recognized as a seriously fast and reliable exploit for modern jailbreak tools. In fact, it’s much smoother than some of those that are already being used, such as v3ntex by tihmstar.
A Tweet shared over the weekend by hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd appears to praise the machswap exploit, and furthermore reveals that the hacker is actively implementing it into the unc0ver jailbreak tool:
“I can already tell how amazing it is,” Pwn20wnd said. “The exploit takes a second or less to run and has an incredible success rate.”
It’s worth noting that the machswap exploit now supports A7-A11 devices, so although Pwn20wnd mentioned 4K devices in his initial Tweet, that’s subject to change in the future at the hacker’s discretion.
In a follow-up Tweet, Pwn20wnd describes what’s left before unc0ver supports A7-A8 and A12(X) devices running iOS 12. From what we can gather, A7-A8 device users are waiting for Saurik to implement a fix for Cydia Substrate, while A12-A12(X) device users are waiting for a full PAC bypass and an update for Cydia Substrate.
Pwn20wnd recently changed his Twitter name to “Pwn20wnd is forging PACs on A12,” which would indicate that he’s currently doing what he can to make a full-fledged iOS 12 jailbreak happen.
On the other hand, Saurik is the only one that can update Cydia Substrate to make it compatible with the aforementioned devices, and he’s a very busy guy – we’ll all just need to be patient until he gets some free time to resolve the known conflicts.
If you’re already using unc0ver for iOS 12, then you may want to heed the advice of one of Pwn20wnd’s most recent Tweets and uninstall RocketBoostrap, as it has been found to cause instabilities with the iOS 12 jailbreak:
RocketBootstrap developer Ryan Petrich is allegedly working on an update that should resolve this problem, but there’s no ETA for its release at this point this time.
Just to note, the unc0ver iOS 12 jailbreak is still in beta, so issues of this nature are to be expected up until the public release. Unless you’re comfortable dealing with these types of headaches, we advise waiting for the official public release. All current versions of the unc0ver jailbreak tool are available to download from Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub page.
Are you excited to see Pwn20wnd implementing PsychoTea’s new machswap exploit? Discuss in the comments section below.