In the past few years, we had to witness the slow descent of the jailbreaking community. Apple made it almost impossible for developers to crack the latest iOS versions, and iPhone users had to get used to phones without jailbreak. However, lately, new reasons to hope appeared.
More recent versions of iOS were cracked and it appeared that jailbreak might regain some of its glory. The latest news make jailbreak fans more hopeful than ever. According to two researchers, the iOS 12.1.2 jailbreak is possible. Their names are Xialong Bai and Min Zheng and they announced their success on Twitter:
Finally! (Mach) Port-oriented Programming (a.k.a POP) Attack Proof 3: Get task_for_pid_0 & root on iOS 12.1.2 (iPhone XS Max with A12 core), by @bxl1989 and @SparkZheng . PAC bypassed now! pic.twitter.com/gL3LZMnqUj
— Xiaolong Bai (@bxl1989) January 15, 2019
Can we jailbreak iOS 12.1.2?
The two researchers claim that they managed to develop the jailbreak tool by exploiting the security measures of Apple. In order to do that, they used a Port-Oriented Programming (POP) attack. By doing this they were able to “crack” the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, gaining root access.
This is not all, it appears that they were able to go through the PAC system of the smartphones. However, if you are dreaming about a jailbreak tool for your iOS 12.1.2 iPhone, there is no reason to get excited yet. There is no assurance that an iOS 12.1.2 jailbreak will become available for the public.
There is a chance that the researchers will choose to report the vulnerabilities they discovered to Apple, which means that they will be fixed in upcoming updates. They could also choose to sell the jailbreak method to other hackers or third parties.
Henry Lares is still early into his career as tech reporter but has already had his work published in many major publications including Tech Crunch and the Huffington Post. In regards to academics, Henry earned an engineering degree from Apex Technical School. Henry has a passion for emerging technology and covers upcoming products and breakthroughs in science and tech.