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iOS 11 Jailbreak Could Soon Be Possible with Exploit Found by Google Employee

Details on the "async_wake" iOS 11.1.2 exploit have emerged

Dec 12, 2017 01:05 GMT  ·  By
iOS 11
   iOS 11

Last week, Google security researcher Ian Beer disclosed an exploit for Apple's iOS 11.1.2 operating system, signaling that an iOS 11 jailbreak could be possible shortly.

On Monday morning, the Google employee attached the async_wake kernel exploit, along with an initial PoC local kernel debugger to an iOS/macOS kernel double free security vulnerability report published on the company's Project Zero website, saying that it can get tfp0 on all 64-bit devices running iOS 11.1.2.

While Ian Beer confirmed the exploit and local kernel debugger are supported on his iPhone 7, iPhone 6s, and iPod touch 6G devices running iOS 11.1.2, they could theoretically work on all other devices. The security researcher recommended those exploiting the vulnerability to find the necessary symbols.

Apple will patch the exploit with a software update

It's very likely that the next iOS 11 software update will patch the exploit, but it will still allow iOS hackers to build a jailbreak tool for iOS 11.1.2, allowing iPhone and iPad users to jailbreak their devices to install third-party OS customizations through apps that are restricted by Apple in the App Store.

The jailbreak will be possible only if users are running iOS 11.1.2 on their devices, which means that if someone already upgraded to the latest iOS 11.2 release, they'll have to downgrade to iOS 11.1.2 using iTunes. But they need to be fast and bet on a possible untethered iOS 11.1.2 jailbreak soon as Apple usually stop signing older iOS builds.

However, it would appear that iOS jailbreaking has started fading in popularity in the last year or so as two major Cydia repositories hosting themes, tweaks, and apps for jailbroken devices were shut down last month. But the iOS jailbreak community is still active and they'll be for some time as more iOS exploits are unveiled.