14 DAY TRIAL // A security vulnerability in iOS 12.1.2 has been discovered by two researchers, and they affect all new-generation iPhones, like iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.
Min Zheng and Xialong Bai shared their work on Twitter, revealing that they managed to obtain root access on the largest of all 2018 iPhones using a Port-Oriented Programming (POP) attack. The PAC system was bypassed on the iPhone XS Max, and the same thing can be done on the XS and XR too.
After compromising the PAC system, it would be much easier for security researchers to develop an iOS 12.1.2 jailbreak, though this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
No public exploit
As iPhone users found out the hard way, the days of iOS jailbreaking are nearly over, as security researchers who discover vulnerabilities in the operating system rarely make them public.
In most of the cases, their findings are reported directly to Apple, who patches them in the next iOS updates, thus making sure iPhones can no longer be unlocked.
At the same time, the number of users who are looking for methods to jailbreak their iPhones has also been reduced significantly, especially given the high complexity of the process and the risks associated with this operation. While jailbreaking indeed comes with a series of benefits, all the efforts that Apple has put into making it harder are apparently paying off on the latest generations.
On the other hand, such findings could pave the way for other researchers to start looking into potential vulnerabilities in the A12 Bionic chip in order to create jailbreaks. Obviously, you shouldn’t hold your breath for a public exploit that would allow the unlocking of iPhones, but at least this kind of discoveries shows that Apple hasn’t yet created an unbreakable iPhone.