iPhone Jailbreakers May Get Their Freedom And Their Security, Too
When Apple offered patches last month for two software vulnerabilities in its iOS operating system that allowed users–or cybercriminals–to completely take control of the phone, the company put customers who had used that “Jailbreakme” exploit in a quandary. Patch the system and stay secure from malicious attacks, or keep their freedom to install much-loved unauthorized apps?
Just hours after Apple released iOS 4.1 today, however, a group of hackers confirmed that they’ve created a new method for jailbreaking iPhones. And this time the security-inclined needn’t worry. Unlike Jailbreakme, which required merely visiting a website, the new “bootrom” exploit, which has yet to be released, requires the phone to be hooked up to a computer with a cable. That means it’s fairly impossible for a cybercriminal to reverse engineer the exploit and use it for unfriendly purposes.
“This is unlikely to create malware problems, as it can not be used to execute code just by clicking a link (as jailbreakme did),” F-secure researcher Mikko Hypponen reassured me in an email. Hypponen had been one of the most vocal critics of Jailbreakme, predicting that if Apple didn’t release a patch, it would be a matter of days until the exploit was reverse-engineered and used by malicious hackers.
