Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Pod2g: Productive Weekend Yields Two New Vulns, One Root-Land

Pod2g: Productive Weekend Yields Two New Vulns, One Root-Land
iOS hacker Pod2g is happy to inform his 260K Twitter followers that he has made progress on two major fronts - kernel, and bootROM.

Image credits: Pod2g's Twitter stream

A recent tweet from Pod2g says “News: a productive week-end. Found 2 big vulnerabilities. 1 kernel land and 1 root land,” the latter being really important, as it will allow the hacker to compromise future versions of Apple’s devices that are based on the same processors.

“Too bad I have to be secret again,” Pod2g adds.

Indeed, Pod2g has a dilemma on his hands: release jailbreak now, or wait for iOS 6? Apple’s upcoming iOS may prove to be a tougher nut to crack, as the company will have patched his existing exploits.

That’s why Pod2g has a poll on his blog. With one day remaining and roughly 90,000 votes in favor of the release (50,000 against, at the time of this writing), the iOS 5.1 untethered jailbreak could be out by the end of the week. But don’t fret!

Pod2g is actively working to compromise iOS 5.1, as well as to thwart the security of Apple’s A5X processor. A root vulnerability is precious in the case of a jailbreak tailored for devices based on the new A5X, such as the new iPad.

For example, if the next iPhone is based around this chip, Pod2g will have a jailbreak ready for it before the device even hits the market. However, a lot of people are urging the hacker to roll out his existing jailbreak - many more than those asking him to wait for iOS 6.

By releasing his iOS 5.1 untethered jailbreak this week, Pod2g would burn not one, but five exploits which Apple would immediately patch in the next iOS release, effectively canceling weeks (if not months) of hard work.