14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, a team of hackers from China released an untethered jailbreak for iOS 7.1.1 using stolen code from a well-known jailbreaker as well as enterprise certificates straight from Apple.
Going by the name of Pangu, the jailbreak is almost entirely made up of stolen code. The team responsible for the tool snatched an enterprise certificate from Apple as well as Stefan Esser’s own exploits created for jailbreaking iOS 7.1.1.
“They are just thieves,” Esser wrote on Twitter, where he uses the handle i0n1c. “The Pangu jailbreak does not only use one info leak bug but several from my training. And there is basically my code linked directly into it,” Esser added.
Esser had reportedly shared his work with other coders in a meeting and was apparently naive to think it wouldn’t leak out. He also notes, “They collected several hundred thousand of US dollars from a chinese company to bundle their app store.”
Indeed, Pangu bundles a pirated app store that users can opt to have removed upon installing the jailbreak.
Another issue surrounding Pangu is that Apple is now aware of several new exploits that were actually meant for the iOS 8 jailbreak. The technology titan will most likely patch the vulnerabilities that permitted the exploitation, therefore delaying the iOS 8 jailbreak.
On the Pangu.io website, the team behind the tool states (translation) that “Pangu Jailbreak software using bunch of exploits which original discovered by our members, we also want thanks the info leak bugs published by i0n1c in his training.”
Available solely for Windows computers at the moment (with a Mac version of the tool currently in development), Pangu can jailbreak any iDevice running iOS 7.1 or iOS 7.1.1.
In a message further below on their web site, the Pangu team reveals that they wanted to show to the world what Chinese hackers can do. A rough Google translation of their message can be found below.
“Jailbreak tool in the development of foreign hackers monopoly for many years, we want to do is very simple, is to let the world know that China also has top technical talent!”
The Pangu team (formed of @Dm557, @windknown, @ogc557, @Daniel_K4, and @once demigod) can also be found on Weibo, the Chinese version of microblogging service Twitter, where they have roughly 40,000 followers at the moment.
The Pangu jailbreak has been deemed reliable and we even have a guide to walk you through the steps of hacking your device (at your own risk, of course).