Stay up-to-date with the latest news and releases of checkra1n, an unpatchable semi-tethered jailbreak based on the checkm8 powerful bootrom exploit supporting A7-A11 devices on iOS and iPadOS 12.0 and higher.
Hacker and checkra1n jailbreak team member Luca Todesco turned quite a few heads Sunday evening after posting a rather peculiar Tweet that appeared to tease substantial progress on an iOS 14 jailbreak.
The Tweet, embedded below, states “popped 14 so to celebrate I got a new pfp (profile picture).”
If you follow the checkra1n team closely on Twitter and you pay attention to the our news pieces as the team releases updates to the tool, then you’d probably come to assume that you can’t run the checkra1n jailbreak unless you have a Mac or a computer running Linux. While the aforementioned state is still technically true, you can use a helpful utility called bootra1n to run the checkra1n jailbreak on your Windows PC.
While it takes a little more finesse than simply running the checkra1n application on a Mac or a Linux box, using bootra1n is a great way to get jailbroken if you don’t have access to either of the above. In this tutorial, we’ll be showing you how to go about it, step by step.
Nearing the end of last month, the Pangu Team took the stage at MOSEC 2020 to discuss a plethora of interesting topics, one of which really stood out from the rest. We’re of course talking about the unpatchable hardware based SEPROM vulnerability that targets a device’s secure enclave processor (SEP).
It wasn’t long after the SEPROM vulnerability was discovered and notes about it were published that famous hackers like Luca Todesco of the checkra1n team began tinkering with it. In fact, it was only yesterday that Todesco Tweeted some particularly eye-catching photos of checkra1n integration on an iOS device and of a T2-equipped Mac running the vulnerability as shown by the Touch Bar’s OLED display:
Whether you’ve jailbroken with the checkra1n tool and fancy reverting back to a vanilla version of iOS or you merely want to uninstall checkra1n to try a different jailbreak tool, the checkra1n jailbreak includes a convenient built-in utility for removing the jailbreak with just a few simple taps.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to remove the checkra1n jailbreak without completely restoring your iPhone or iPad. This method is traditionally recommended over a full-blown device restore because it doesn’t erase your data and it preserves your version of iOS. The latter is especially useful if you’re removing checkra1n to try another jailbreak since other jailbreaks can be picky about the versions of iOS they support.
Saurik has been particularly busy lately in the Cydia Substrate department. Cydia Substrate received yet another unforeseen update late last night that officially brought the package up to version 0.9.7107.
According to the release notes published on the package’s depiction page, this is what the new Cydia Substrate v0.9.7107 brings to the table for its users:
Not even 24 hours after launching a memory-conscious update for Cydia Substrate, Saurik pushed yet another update on Tuesday, officially bringing the package up to version 0.9.7106.
Citing the official description for this release, Cydia Substrate v0.9.7106 isn’t a particularly large update, but encompasses the following changes:
Cydia Substrate, a method of tweak injection that can be used on both the checkra1n and unc0ver jailbreaks, was updated Monday evening to the shiny new version 0.9.7105.
Citing the change log for this particular release, Cydia Substrate v0.9.7105 should be easier on system memory and be less prone to crashing due to a new memory limit threshold system. The full change log from Saurik is quoted below:
Cydia Substrate users have probably noticed quite a substantial number of updates to this particular package over the past couple of days. Two consecutive updates for Cydia Substrate were launched Wednesday night and Thursday morning, but the excitement didn’t stop there. Saurik pushed a third update for Cydia Substrate Thursday afternoon, officially bringing the package up to version 0.9.7104.
Cydia Substrate is used for tweak injection on both the checkra1n and unc0ver jailbreaks for devices up to and including those equipped with A11 chips. Cydia Substrate never received support for A12 and newer handsets because of technical challenges, and so any of these devices that have been jailbroken with unc0ver use Substitute for tweak injection instead.
Following a Cydia Substrate update on Wednesday that improved hooking and added preliminary support for iOS 14, the package received a second update early Thursday morning, this time bringing it up to version 0.9.7103.
Cydia Substrate is used for tweak injection on both the checkra1n and unc0ver jailbreaks, albeit only up to A11 devices for the latter as Cydia Substrate doesn’t support A12 or newer handsets. If you’re using a supported platform, then this update is available from Sam Bingner’s default repository and should appear after refreshing your sources.
Depending on the type of jailbreak you’re using, your handset might depend on Cydia Substrate for tweak injection. This will be the case if you’re using checkra1n, but it may also apply to unc0ver users who aren’t using A12 or newer handsets since Cydia Substrate was never updated to support Apple’s latest lineup because of unforeseen complexity challenges.
If your jailbroken handset does use Cydia Substate for tweak injection, then you may want to launch Cydia and refresh your sources. An updated version of Cydia Substrate was released on Wednesday with improvements, officially bringing the package up to version 0.9.7102.
Apple officially unveiled iOS and iPadOS 14 for the first time on Monday as a part of its WWDC 2020 Keynote, and just this morning, checkra1n team co-developer Dany Lisiansky teased a screenshot of the checkra1n jailbreak working on an iPhone running iOS 14. If the words “that was fast” uttered from your mouth upon seeing this, then you’re not alone.
Lisiansky admitted that there was still a lot more work that needed to be completed before checkra1n could be deemed iOS 14-compatible, but as you might come to expect, things are progressing rather quickly thanks to the unique talent encompassed within the checkra1n team. Just this evening, checkra1n team co-developer Sam Bingner teased a screenshot of the Cydia package manager operating on an iPhone X running iOS 14:
It was only a couple of days ago that Apple unveiled iOS and iPadOS 14 during the company’s WWDC 2020 keynote. Shortly after that, Apple launched its first developer beta of the updated mobile operating systems, allowing developers to go hands-on with the new features and prepare their apps for the update before it launches sometime this Fall.
While iOS and iPadOS 14 snagged a ton of features from the jailbreak community as Apple does every year with each substantial release, it doesn’t seem like jailbreaking will be going anywhere any time soon. In a Tweet shared late last night, checkra1n team co-developer Dany Lisiansky shared a teaser screenshot of the checkra1n jailbreak on the first iOS 14 beta: