iOS 11: Jailbreak already possible and shown to the public
An iOS 11 jailbreak tool, which is not yet publicly available, has been shown at a Chinese computer security conference.
They are hard times for so-called ” jailbreakers ” on iOS. Years ago, it seemed like a virtually indispensable practice to unlock all the potential of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but today it has also become difficult to follow.
With the operating system versions that follow one after the other and the slowness with which various tools are released to jailbreak, who wants to unlock their iPhone has a really hard life.
ios 10&11 jailbreak by keenlab～！ pic.twitter.com/BfZ0utqHPv
— Min(Spark) Zheng (@SparkZheng) June 23, 2017
Despite this, there is still interest in the topic, as a group of Chinese researchers showed a working version of a jailbreak tool on iOS 11 beta. The first release was released only a few weeks ago, and public launch is not scheduled before the end of summer. Tencent’s Keen Security Lab has managed to unlock Apple’s latest mobile operating system despite the shortest time available .
The unlocking tool was shown at Mobile Security Conference 2017 (MOSEC) in Shanghai, China, with photos of the demonstration posted on Twitter by Min Zheng of Alibaba. The images also show a jailbreak running on iOS 10.3.2, released in April, which only supports devices with SoC 64-bit, so excluding iPhone 5 and iPhone 5C. Keen Security Lab is a security company, so it seems extremely difficult to release the tool to the public.
It is more likely that the company shares the results with Apple so that the Cupertino company technicians can work on the bug and resolve it in time for the release of the final version in the fall. For years Apple has struggled hard against the jailbreaker active community, and in the past has provokedly thanked the teams that released the release tools within the iOS’s correct vulnerability notes.
However, the hack shown by the Chinese company demonstrates how there is still the ability to crack iOS defenses in a short time. But, also considering security issues from jailbreak, are we sure you still really need it?
