Prospective jailbreakers on iOS & iPadOS 15 have been biting their nails and waiting for what’s expected to be a rootless jailbreak from the Odyssey Team. But even as development continues, security researchers are still dropping kernel exploits.
All the hubbub lately surrounding kernel vulnerabilities for the iPhone and iPad has been in relation to the now-turned kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1. But a fresh announcement shared Wednesday afternoon to Twitter by @Synacktiv is turning quite a few heads.
If you’ve been following along with us as we report on the journey to an iOS & iPadOS 15 jailbreak, then you’ve likely caught wind about Odyssey Team lead developer CoolStar explaining how it will be easier to jailbreak A9-A11-equipped handsets than it will be to do the same with A12 and newer-equipped handsets.
Nearing around two weeks after security researcher @b1n4r1b01 published a working kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 based on Brightiup’s CVE-2021-30955 kernel bug, another respected hacker now appears to be surfacing with an exploit release.
Ever since a kernel-level exploit for iPhones and iPads running iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 officially dropped, major players of the jailbreak community have been looking into the feasibility of incorporating it into a public jailbreak. Odyssey Team lead developer CoolStar was among one of the first to publicly acknowledge this, however they also warned about how changes made under the hood would make jailbreaking later firmware on A12 and newer devices more of a challenge.
The Odyssey Team has been investigating the feasibility of the new iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 kernel exploit for an upcoming semi-untethered jailbreak tool, and many prospective jailbreakers are undoubtedly anxious to see what happens next.
If you’ve been following the developments surrounding iOS & iPadOS security research lately, then there’s no way you could have missed Brightiup’s CVE-2021-30955 kernel bug for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1. Soon after the write-up, hackers and security researchers alike began making proof-of-concepts (PoCs), and later came the full-blown exploit from @b1n4r1b01.
Hacker @b1n4r1b01 attracted heaps of attention Tuesday morning after publishing a full kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 that was based on Brightiup’s CVE-2021-30955 kernel bug write-up.
Brightiup’s CVE-2021-30955 kernel bug for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 has received tons of publicity lately after two prestigious security researchers including Jake James and @Peterpan980927 each went hands-on to develop proof-of-concepts (PoCs) based on the original write-up, which didn’t come with a PoC of its own.
Those closely following the iOS & iPadOS software security sector might remember an iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 kernel bug write-up published by Kunlun Lab security researcher @realBrightiup just last week. A day later, Alibaba Security Pandora Lab security researcher @Peterpan980927 showed off a proof-of-concept (PoC) using that write-up as a template.
Just yesterday, we shared Kunlun Lab security researcher @realBrightiup’s write-up about CVE-2021-30955, a kernel bug that could have resulted in arbitrary code execution with kernel-level privileges via the app sandbox if exploited on iOS or iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1.
As many will recall from a post we ran in mid-December, Kunlun Lab security researcher Zweig (@realBrightiup) had planned to share details about a bug that could have been used to exploit the kernel on iOS & iPadOS versions 15.0-15.1.1.