Google Researcher Releases iOS Jailbreak Exploit
Google security researcher Ian Beer has reawakened the jailbreak community recently by releasing an exploit he found on the iOS 11.1.2 to the public.
This is him keeping his word to share it with the world not long after he revealed the discovery, calling the exploit "tfp0," which he first announced after Apple found a workaround on the kernel memory corruption bug. He believes that with this, jailbreaking may finally be possible again.
To note, what Beer shared is simply the exploit, not a full iOS jailbreak. While this may come as a disappointment to some, he is confident that the tfp0 sighting is a big step toward developing a full-fledged jailbreak in the future.
Apple has been successful in combating jailbreaking with its latest efforts forcing top developers like Cydia to close down, which also rendered obsolete groups who provided apps and themes for jailbroken devices such as ModMy and ZodTTD/MacCiti.
Beer, who is part of the team working on Google's Project Zero, said that the tfp0 should work for all devices and that "adding more support should be easy." He tested the kernel debugger on an iPhone 7, iPhone 6s and iPod Touch 6G.
The release was meant to give users the ability to take their own toolkits to their Apple devices mostly for that extra layer of security. The exploit can also be used on the Mac OS 10.13 on a MacBook Air 5.2.
Those who intend to make a jailbreak out of tfp0 would want to start working on one now as the software might soon meet its end.
After all, iOS 11.1.2, while Apple is still signing it despite the recent release of iOS 11.12, is expected to be finished soon. MacRumors adds that the emergence of the tfp0 exploit will likely accelerate that.