Misaka for MacDirtyCow devices running iOS or iPadOS 15.0-16.1.2 has been all the rage recently. Working as a jailbreak-style package manager for non-jailbroken devices for accessing some of the community’s greatest MacDirtyCow add-ons, the project is rapidly gaining momentum. But hot off the heels of the new kernel file descriptor (kfd) exploit, it’s poised to become even more popular.
Citing an official announcement made in the Misaka Discord server, it would appear that the Misaka package manager’s upcoming support for kfd on devices running iOS or iPadOS 16.6 beta 1 and older (generally 16.5 and older) is sprinting toward a public and developer beta release.
In fact, the announcement says that a Google Form for developers to submit testing requests should be pushed this week – as early as today (Wednesday) or tomorrow (Thursday).
As we discussed in a previous article, the kfd exploit allows for kernel memory read and write access on firmware up to and including iOS 16.6 beta 1, and this permits similar characteristics as those allowed by the MacDirtyCow exploit. For this reason, we’re about to see a lot of add-ons coming out that support newer firmware on Apple’s latest devices, even without a jailbreak.
A few things that we can gather from the announcement are that Misaka for kfd isn’t expected to support A9-A11 devices. Instead, it will only operate on arm64e devices, which are A12 and newer devices up to and including the latest iPhone 14 Pro Max, and that there are still some bugs that need ironing out before it’s ready for the masses.
This is only expected to be a limited beta run, so those of you waiting to get your hands on tweaks and add-ons for your kfd-vulnerable device will need to wait a little longer. That’s because even if Misaka picks up support for kfd, the developers of the many MacDirtyCow packages will need to update them to support kfd.
In any case, this is great news. With no telling when there might be a jailbreak released for newer devices on iOS or iPadOS 16, having these nifty mods available to us by way of a simple kernel exploit is certainly better than nothing for those who like customizing their device outside of Apple’s stock parameters.
If you’re not already using the Misaka package manager for your MacDirtyCow-enabled device, then you can learn more about it and how to install it in our full walk through post.
Do you plan to use Misaka on a kfd-vulnerable firmware when it launches? Let us know in the comments section down below.