On Wednesday, April 18th pod2g, a very prominent iOS security expert among the Jailbreak community, revealed that he and the other hackers he’s collaborating with have discovered all the required exploits for a “new [and untethered] jailbreak”. Also, pod2g informed his followers that he was, “working on bypassing ASLR at boot up”.
While there’s currently a Jailbreak available for iOS 5.1, it’s tethered and it simply doesn’t support Apple’s three newest iDevices: the iPad 2, iPhone 4S and the new iPad. Unlike the presently available iOS 5.1 Jailbreak utility, the “new jailbreak” that pod2g is developing will be untethered and will hopefully extend to Apple’s newest devices (visit this Jailbreak article for a full and in-depth explanation of tethered versus untethered).
Today, just two short days after pod2g’s last update, the renowned hacker has once again announced significant progress in the development of the “new jailbreak”: ASLR has successfully been bypassed.
Essentially, ASLR (or address space layout randomization) is a “computer security” method that entails the random position arrangements of primary data areas. Introduced in iOS 4.3, ASLR has, if nothing else, been a setback in the creation of current Jailbreak utilities.
However, despite the issues ASLR poses for security experts and hackers, the extra precautionary measure hasn’t impeded pod2g’s efforts to compile an untethered Jailbreak and appears to have been a minor inconvenience.
Now that pod2g has successful bypassed ASLR, his next step is to, “ROP the payload” (as stated in his official Twitter update).
Unfortunately, as usual, there isn’t an official release date for the “new jailbreak” – stay tuned for full coverage on the iOS 5.1 untethered Jailbreak as events unfold.
