Last week, Apple released iOS & iPadOS 14.8 to the general public with important security patches for a zero-click exploit that could have resulted in arbitrary code execution.
If you’ve had your eyes glued to jailbreak community developments amid all the talk of untethers recently, then you’re not alone, and we’re especially excited to share that you’re in for some good news.
Excitement is swirling around in the jailbreak community Monday evening after hacker and iOS developer @__spv took to Twitter to share thought-provoking Tweets related to untethered jailbreaks.
Untethered jailbreaks are something of a rarity these days, with most modern jailbreaks being either semi-tethered or semi-untethered variants instead. But a teaser by security researcher Linus Henze just one week ago manifested at least some hope that the community could witness one again soon, at least for the likes of iOS & iPadOS 14.5.1 and below.
And speaking of untethered jailbreaks, Odyssey Team lead developer CoolStar announced via the Sileo / Taurine / Odyssey Discord channel Monday evening that they had successfully achieved arbitrary code execution in a native iOS/iPadOS application after conducting a full reboot of the device. This is, of course, the hallmark feature of an untethered jailbreak.
It seemed like jailbreak-viable kernel exploits and security vulnerabilities for iOS & iPadOS 14 had all but disappeared over the course of the past several months, but with iOS & iPadOS 15 right around the corner, that appears to be changing.
For the past several years, the overwhelming majority of jailbreaks have been semi-untethered, meaning that you could still use a handset hacked liberated by said tools after a reboot, albeit in a non-jailbroken state.
The lack of untethered jailbreaks — or those that remain fully jailbroken following a reboot — has been a pain point for jailbreakers for as long as anyone can remember. For that reason, a Tweet shared by @LinusHenze Monday afternoon might be of particular interest…
The most current jailbreak tools available to the public today are Taurine and unc0ver, each of which are capable of jailbreaking devices running up to and including iOS or iPadOS 14.3. Several iPhone and iPad software updates later, and we’re currently residing at iOS & iPadOS 14.7.1 with a public iOS & iPadOS 15 release looming just over the horizon.
Having said that, the elephant in the room would be the blazingly-obvious question: where are all the jailbreak-viable exploits for iOS 14.4 and later?
Apple hasn’t held back from being vocal about the performance and security of its proprietary M1 chip – the tried-and-true powerhouse found inside of several different Mac computer models and even the highest-end 2021 iPad Pro. But as it would seem, not even the venerable M1 chip is hack proof…
Hacker and ZecOps security researcher @08Tc3wBB, known for contributions to the jailbreak community in the form of exploits that have been used in tools such as unc0ver by Pwn20wnd, appears to have made a momentous breakthrough with respect to the M1 chip.
Hacker and security researcher @pattern_F_ issued a stern reminder to avid jailbreakers Tuesday afternoon about the potential dangers of a jaw-dropping security flaw discovered in iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3.
Hot off the heels of Apple’s newly released iOS & iPadOS 14.7.1 software update Monday afternoon, the company published a page entitled “About the security content of iOS 14.7.1 and iPadOS 14.7.1.” The notes describing what this update patches are somewhat shocking.
Modern jailbreak tools like Taurine and unc0ver can currently jailbreak all iOS & iPadOS 14 devices running up to and including iOS & iPadOS 14.3. It’s been quite a while since any of these tools have picked up support for new firmware, but there’s always the very real possibility that these tools could add support for new firmware in the future.
Fortunately for those whose devices are operating on iOS or iPadOS 14.4 through 14.5.1, there just might be some hope. Renowned security researcher Ian Beer of Google Project Zero has just released documentation of what appears to be a kernel-level proof of concept (PoC) impacting up to and including iOS & iPadOS 14.5.1.
Apple just yesterday released iOS & iPadOS 14.6 to the general public to lay the groundwork for Apple Music’s upcoming lossless playback option, support Apple Card Family, and more. But that's not all...
Also worth noting is that iOS & iPadOS 14.6 patched a number of security vulnerabilities, including one that purportedly allowed security researcher @xerub to gain arbitrary code execution by simply parsing a carefully crafted certificate.