Submitted via IRC for SoyCow9427
All devices from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone X are impacted
A newly announced iOS exploit could lead to a permanent, unblockable jailbreak on hundreds of millions of iPhones, according to researcher axi0mX who discovered it. Dubbed "checkm8," the exploit is a bootrom vulnerability that could give hackers deep access to iOS devices on a level that Apple would be unable to block or patch out with a future software update. That would make it one of the biggest developments in the iPhone hacking community in years.
The exploit is specifically a bootrom exploit, meaning it's taking advantage of a security vulnerability in the initial code that iOS devices load when they boot up. And since it's ROM (read-only memory), it can't be overwritten or patched by Apple through a software update, so it's here to stay. It's the first bootrom-level exploit publicly released for an iOS device since the iPhone 4, which was released almost a decade ago.
In a follow-up tweet, axi0mX explained that they released the exploit to the public because a "bootrom exploit for older devices makes iOS better for everyone. Jailbreakers and tweak developers will be able to jailbreak their phones on latest version, and they will not need to stay on older iOS versions waiting for a jailbreak. They will be safer."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Monday September 30 2019, @12:10AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.