In a somewhat unexpected move, Apple on Thursday released iOS 12.5.5, a small firmware update for older iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches that are incapable of running iOS or iPadOS 13 and later.
With iOS and iPadOS 15 now available to the general public, an assortment of questions and even rumors have started to circulate about jailbreaking.
Amid all the recent excitement surrounding jailbreak untether hype and the confirmation that one would be officially released on October 21st, there’s certainly a lot to look forward to. But for right now, it’s business as usual for jailbreak groups like the Odyssey Team.
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.
Apple released iOS & iPadOS 14.8 last Monday to patch serious vulnerabilities that could have been weaponized by hackers to run malicious code on others’ iPhones and iPads via iMessage. Most owners of these devices were advised to update without hesitation, except perhaps jailbreakers, given the gravity of what these vulnerabilities could have entailed.
Now that it’s been a week since that software update, it may come as no surprise that Apple has officially closed the signing window for iOS & iPadOS 14.7.1, the firmware that pre-dated iOS & iPadOS 14.8.
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.
Curiously timed with respect to the upcoming iOS & iPadOS 15 updates for iPhone and iPad, The Odyssey Team appears to have released an updated version of the iOS & iPadOS 13-based Odyssey jailbreak tool.
Just a couple of days ago, the Odyssey Team shared that it was already investing in test devices for iOS & iPadOS 15 jailbreak development. The announcement was accompanied by a photograph of an iPod touch that had been custom engraved with the words “Odyssey Team” on the back.
More recently, Odyssey Team lead developer CoolStar took to the Sileo / Taurine / Odyssey Discord channel to share that libhooker — the tweak injection method utilized by the Chimera, Odyssey, and Taurine jailbreaks for iOS 12, 13, and 14 respectively — was mostly working on iOS 15 beta 8.
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?
In a spark of optimism for the jailbreak community, the Odyssey Team seems to be getting a head start with respect to investing in the future of jaibreaking.