A9

Jake James publishes work-in-progress exploit achieving kernel R/W on A8-A9 running iOS 15.0-15.2 beta 1

iPhone hacked matrix.

If you’ve been following the developments surrounding iOS & iPadOS security research lately, then there’s no way you could have missed Brightiup’s CVE-2021-30955 kernel bug for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1. Soon after the write-up, hackers and security researchers alike began making proof-of-concepts (PoCs), and later came the full-blown exploit from @b1n4r1b01.

S0rryMyBad shares PoC of the bug he used to jailbreak iOS 12 on pre-A12 devices

Just over two weeks ago, security researcher @S0rryMyBad announced the discovery of an exploit for iOS 12.1.2 and below for pre-A12 devices, adding that he would release information about it after Apple patched it in a software update. Fortunately, that time has finally come.

Several hours after Apple released iOS 12.1.3 to the public on Tuesday, @S0rryMyBad made good on his promise by Tweeting a proof of concept screenshot of the bug that he had teased earlier in the month:

Tihmstar opts not to release standalone exploit, instead says “something cool coming”

Matrix code hacked iPhone.

There was no shortage of exciting jailbreak-centric news this past week, but perhaps the most captivating tidbit of all was the announcement that tihmstar was tinkering with an exploit that could hack a subset of devices running iOS 11.2.6-11.4.1 – specifically those with headphone jacks.

It didn’t take long after the initial announcement for tihmstar to share that he had achieved tpf0, which permits arbitrary reads and writes to a device’s kernel memory. On the other hand, a pair of Tweets shared just weekend shed new light on the hacker’s intentions involving said exploit:

Tihmstar achieves tfp0 exploit on iOS 11.4-11.4.1, jailbreaks could soon adopt support

Just yesterday, we reported that hacking guru tihmstar was tinkering with an exploit targeting a subset of iOS 11.4 and 11.4.1 devices that sported headphone jacks. At the time, tihmstar only had kernel read access but was still working on kernel offsets and write access.

But those tides have changed as of Friday. tihmstar has taken to Twitter to announce that he achieved tfp0:

Tihmstar is tinkering with an exploit for iOS 11.4-11.4.1 devices, but there are caveats

If you’ve been waiting patiently on iOS 11.4-11.4.1 for a jailbreak to surface, then you might be in for a treat. Hacking guru tihmstar appears to be tinkering with an exploit that supports these firmware versions, at least on specific devices.

A Tweet shared by tihmstar Tuesday evening denotes how the exploit in question supports iOS versions up to 11.4.1; on the other hand, it also relies on the headphone jack. This caveat means that some devices, like those powered by Apple’s A10 and A11 chips, aren’t supported:

Video: hands-on with Apple ARKit demo app

To help developers prepare for the arrival of iOS 11 and ARKit, Apple has made a demo application available to download and check out. If you have the prerequisites, it is actually very easy to get up and going with ARKit to try it out for yourself.

Teardown analysis finds Apple’s new 9.7″ iPad is a repackaged iPad Air with a few differences

Repair experts over at iFixit tore apart Apple's new iPad with a brighter 9.7-inch screen. What they discovered doesn't come as surprise: the canonical iPad is basically an original four-year-old iPad Air with a more repairable screen and some new jewelry in the form of Touch ID, Apple Pay, Apple's homegrown third-generation 64-bit A9 chip with the embedded M9 motion coprocessor and other minor updates.

Unfortunately, the device's A9 processor is outfitted with two gigabytes of RAM. iPhone 6s's A9 chip has two gigabytes of RAM as well, just like iPad Air 2's A8X chip, so this may not be that big of a deal. On the other hand, it's a letdown considering iPhone 7 Plus is rocking three gigabytes of RAM.

Early CPU scores suggest modest gains for iPhone 7’s A10 chip vs. iPad Pro’s A9X

Early Geekbench 3 benchmark of the Apple-designed A10 system-on-a-chip—which will be the next iPhone and iPad's engine—was posted Thursday by Dutch blog TechTastic.nl. Purported scores suggest the device may not be much speedier than the iPhone 6s and iPad Pro. The upcoming chip scored a tad more than last year’s A9 powering the iPhone 6s series and a little bit faster than the A9X in the iPad Pro.

On the other hand, the benchmarked A10 is almost certainly a prototype unit so final scores should be higher than is currently the case.