Early this morning, pod2g, renowned iOS hacker and security expert who collaborated with the Chronic Dev Team to create the latest iOS 5.1.1 Untethered Jailbreak, confirmed that Apple has patched a Jailbreak exploit used by developers that was discovered in 2010 by Comex (Jailbreak wunderkin turned Apple intern).
While still present in past firmwares, Apple has closed the exploit in the latest iOS 6 beta – which was released on Monday after their annual World Wide Developers Conference.
But, while patched, Apple’s latest triumph in the cat-and-mouse game that is the Jailbreaking scene, won’t directly affect your average iDevice owner who enjoys the benefits of Jailbreak. It will, however, affect all members of the community indirectly in the sense that it will hinder developers preparing their Cydia packages ahead of a firmware’s public release.
Furthermore, MuscleNerd (a key member of the iPhone Dev Team) confirmed that the exploit was “unusable for a general release jailbreak because it required an iOS Developer account”.
In summary, the latest patched exploit will only prevent certain developers who previously had access to the unreleased Jailbreak from getting a head start on preparing their creations – this presumably includes Saurik and Cydia itself. This, by no means, will usher in the end of Jailbreaking. Stay tuned for more coverage on the situation and additional Jailbreak related news.
