Having the skillset to reverse engineer things with respect to the iPhone and iPad can be particularly valuable, especially if you’re a security researcher, developer, or advanced-level power user. But what if reverse engineering could be made easier and more approachable?
In a nutshell, reverse engineering is a fancy term for taking something apart to learn more about what makes it tick. This can be important in the software space, especially if you’re attempting to learn more about how you can change, hack, or utilize something in that software sphere.
While the ordinary iPhone user likely has no idea where to start when it comes to reverse engineering this device, the fact remains that reverse engineering can be especially helpful when you’re trying to build apps, jailbreak tweaks, jailbreaks, or perform general research into a device’s kernel security mechanisms.
With all that being said, it seems exhilarating that @blacktop_ took to X (formerly Twitter) just this week to announce what appears to be an exciting new feature for ipsw: Kernel Symbolication.
In a nutshell, this should make it easier for those poking into the iPhone’s kernel software internals to reverse engineer stuff. In a blog post about the Kernel Symbolication announcement, the developer discusses why this is important:
Symbolicating a stripped kernelcache opens up new possibilities for reverse engineers, security researchers, and developers who need to dig deep into Apple’s kernel internals. With this new feature, you no longer need to struggle with a barebones kernelcache. Instead, you can fully unlock its potential, making your analysis more accurate and comprehensive.
Kernel Symbolication can make life easier for anyone trying to perform a kernel analysis on the iPhone by showing method names and stack symbols, among other things. That said, we’re excited to see how it might help not only security researchers, but also developers in the long term.
You can learn more about these tools by heading over to the ipsw page and Symbolicator repository on GitHub.