Luca Todesco teases progress on checkra1n, a checkm8-based jailbreak

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.

While it certainly wasn’t much to go by, it wasn’t long before Todesco himself chimed in to share how well things were going:

Todesco went on to explain that a lot of work is being put into checkra1n to make this as seamless of a jailbreakexperience as possible. As it would seem, development is going smoothly and even Todesco himself is impressed with its speed and fluidity.

If you didn’t already know, the checkm8 bootrom exploit affects A5-A11 devices, up to and including the popular iPhone X, which conceived the whole ‘notch’ craze that we see today in Apple’s lineup. Most of the supported devices don’t sport notches, but it’s nice to have at least one modernized device type in the supported list of devices. Sadly, it doesn’t support the iPhone XS or newer.

Checkm8 is particularly exciting for the jailbreak community because it’s a hardware-based exploit. This means that Apple can’t patch it with a simple software update like they can most exploits that are used by modern jailbreaks (E.G. Chimera, Electra, and unc0ver). With that in mind, those devices that are susceptible to it can now be pwned for life, just like the iPhone 4 during the nostalgic limera1n days. The exploit even opens the door for possible firmware downgrades, regardless of Apple’s signing status.

Jailbreak development is, by no means, a walk in the park; it takes tons of patience, lots of hard work, and oodles of beta testing before any sort of public release would even be possible. What we’re seeing right now are the very first puzzle pieces of what could one day become a viable jailbreak solution. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have enough information to tell just how far along the developmental process is, let alone when it might be completed and/or released.

Regardless of progress, it is indeed exciting to see something so spectacular come to fruition, especially in the face of Apple’s rapid software update releases in a seemingly blatant attempt to thwart jailbreaking altogether.

Are you excited about the checkra1n project and what it might entail? Discuss in the comments section below.