Just over two weeks ago, it became known that hacking guru tihmstar was tinkering with a tfp0 exploit for iOS 11.4-11.4.1 devices of the A10 and earlier variety. But not long after finishing it, he opted not to release it, citing that ‘something cool’ would be coming instead.
Curiously, tihmstar appears to have undergone a change of heart on Tuesday after releasing his exploit to the public, a move that could reinforce existing iOS 11-centric jailbreak tools such as Electra and unc0ver:
Not long after advising the jailbreak community about what to do regarding the FaceTime-centric bug and the impending software update from Apple to fix it, hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd revised the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release this afternoon with some notable changes.
Citing the hacker’s official GitHub page, Tuesday’s update marks the fourteenth revision to the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release since its initial conception just over a week ago. The new revision appears to incorporate the following changes:
Just yesterday, Apple was compelled to temporarily disable its FaceTime service after a critical bug was discovered that enabled a malicious individual to ‘spy’ on someone else via the recipient’s microphone and camera. Apple later mentioned that they would implement a fix via a software update later this week.
The circumstances present obvious implications for the jailbreak community, as installing a software update would reduce your jailbreakability to practically zilch. That said, if you’re waiting for an iOS 12 jailbreak to drop and don’t have the means to install Apple’s upcoming firmware update, then you’re undoubtedly questioning what the best course of action is.
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd has been on quite the roll lately; just yesterday he released unc0ver v2.1.4 to the general public, and he also pushed a bevy of revisions this weekend to the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release with bug fixes, performance improvements, and experimental new features. But as it would seem, there’s still more work to be done.
Pwn20wnd shared a Tweet Sunday morning denoting how he’s “actively implementing user requests” to make unc0ver “even better.” The Tweet points to the hacker’s official GitHub repository, where unc0ver users can reach out about problems and feature requests via the Issues tab on the web page:
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd has been rather busy as late. In addition to revising the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release at least three times since our last writeup, he also pushed a new public build – v2.1.4 – with some notable improvements.
Pwn20wnd announced the update via Twitter on Saturday:
acker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd pushed his ninth revision to the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release jailbreak tool for public testing on Friday. As you might come to expect, this revision incorporates minor bug fixes and improvements to help the beta process along.
We can gather from Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub changelog that this new revision brings the following changes:
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd issued at least three more revisions to the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release since our last coverage, with each revision bringing fresh bug fixes and performance improvements to make the jailbreak experience as smooth as possible for users.
Citing the changelog published on Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub page, those three revisions encompass the following changes:
Apple officially dropped iOS 12.1.3 on Tuesday, and it wasn’t long after that security researcher @S0rryMyBad Tweeted a proof of concept (PoC) of the bug used to achieve an iOS 12 jailbreak at the TianfuCup PWN Contest last November.
On Wednesday, @S0rryMyBad followed up with the PoC he Tweeted by publishing a detailed blog post elaborating the ins and outs of his bug, including how it works and how to use it on iOS 12.1.2 and below:
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:
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd revised the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release again on Tuesday with additional bug fixes and improvements.
Citing the changelog published on Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub page, what is now the fifth pre-release beta of this particular unc0ver jailbreak tool version comprises of the following changes:
01/22/2019 - v2.2.0~b5 was released for public testing with the following changes:
- Fix theoretical bugs
- Improve assertion to make it safer
- Fix a bug in logging
- Update bootstrap
- Enable overwriting files in the bootstrap extractor
Just like the pre-release revisions that we reported about yesterday, this revision is still a beta and should not be deployed on daily driver handsets. This release is only intended for experienced jailbreakers or developers with knowledge of the troubleshooting steps required to handle potential bugs and instabilities.
Given how long the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release has been in its beta stages thus far, we expect that an official public release will follow in the coming days; of course, only time will tell.
If you aren’t comfortable using a pre-release version of unc0ver, then we advise you to use the latest official public release (v2.1.3) instead; it too can be downloaded from Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub repository.
Unc0ver is a semi-tethered jailbreak just like Electra, which means you must re-run the tool after every reboot. That aside, it bundles a newer iOS 11-optimized build of Cydia that sports the official seal of approval from Saurik himself.
If you’ve never used unc0ver before, and plan to do so now, then you can follow our in-depth tutorial about how to install and run the unc0ver jailbreak. The unc0ver jailbreak tool supports all devices that can run iOS 11.0-11.4 beta 3. If you run into any problems while using unc0ver, then you can report bugs here.
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd dropped the first unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release for public testing on Sunday with an extensive list of changes, but it now seems that was only the beginning.
On Monday, Pwn20wnd pushed at least two new revisions to the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release, dubbed b3 and b4. The changelog appearing on Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub page cites the following changes in these revisions:
It was only yesterday that hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd released unc0ver v2.1.3 to the general public; but as it would seem, he’s not finished fine-tuning the iOS 11-centric jailbreak tool just yet.
In a Tweet shared Sunday afternoon, Pwn20wnd announced the availability of unc0ver v2.2.0 for public testing: