Security researchers working for the giant Chinese conglomerate Alibaba said that they successfully created an iPhone X untethered jailbreak for iOS 11.2.1.
The latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, which was released just a few days ago, apparently has vulnerabilities that were exploited to create the jailbreak.
Untethered Jailbreak For iPhone X On iOS 11.2.1
In a Chinese statement released by Pandora Labs, the team of security researchers, headed by Song Yang, initially said that they were able to create an untethered iPhone X jailbreak for iOS 11.2. The researchers later added that the same jailbreak can be applied to IOS 11.2.1, which was released on Dec. 13. Yang described the iOS 11.2.1 jailbreak as "perfect" and "different" from other recent jailbreaks.
An untethered jailbreak means that users can reboot the jailbroken iPhone X normally, compared to tethered jailbreaks that require the device to be connected to a PC for a successful restart back into its jailbroken state. In addition, photos taken of the jailbreak in action revealed that the security researchers were able to install Cydia, the App Store alternative for jailbroken iPhones,
Can You Download The iPhone X Jailbreak?
Unfortunately, for iPhone X owners who would want to jailbreak their smartphones, Pandora Labs will not publicly release its findings. The team said that their work was limited to security research purposes, which is also why there were very few details given on how the iPhone X jailbreak actually worked.
One of the screenshots shared by Pandora Labs, however, hinted that the iOS 11.2.1 jailbreak exploited a memory buffer overflow bug so that a kernel panic can be triggered.
Is An iPhone X Jailbreak Really Necessary?
The news on the successful untethered iPhone X jailbreak comes several days after Google Project Zero researcher Ian Beer said that he will roll out an exploit that will make an iOS 11.1.2 jailbreak possible. Beer kept his word and released code that may be used for an iPhone X jailbreak.
There appears to be no connection between the untethered jailbreak for the iPhone X by Pandora Labs and the iPhone exploit code released by Google Project Zero. However, the big question is whether iPhone X owners and users of all other iPhone models still need to jailbreak their devices in the first place.
Jailbreaks allow users to take full control of their iPhones and were initially used to customize the user interface, install unapproved apps, and enable the devices to be used with all carriers. However, with Apple slowly adding many previously missing features and the protection provided by legitimate versions of the iOS, the demand for jailbreaks has actually dwindled.
