The jailbreak community seems to be getting into the habit of going into a lull before a storm. Just when there were murmurs of “jailbreaking is dead”, we’re seeing a flurry of activity in the jailbreak community.
Yesterday, we thought security researcher and hacker, Min Zheng aka SparkZheng, had successfully jailbroken iOS 11.3. But he clarified that it wasn’t a jailbreak because he “didn’t remount the rootfs to R/W and install Cydia”. He also added that it was because “Apple had added a new mitigation on iOS 11.3 in APFS KEXT” which needs to be bypassed.
coolstar was quick to jump on the opportunity and hint that he will be releasing an update for Electra Jailbreak to jailbreak iOS 11.2.6 – iOS 11.2 and advised jailbreakers to stay on iOS 11.2 – iOS 11.2.6.
If that wasn’t exciting enough, SparkZheng has just revealed that he has successfully jailbroken iOS 11.3.1, the latest iOS version, and published the demo of the jailbreak. A few days back, security researchers at Tencent Keen Security Lab had also revealed that they had successfully jailbroken iOS 11.3.1 on iPhone X. Back in November last year, security researchers at Tencent Keen Security Lab were the first to demo an iPhone X jailbreak. While we doubt the security researcher at Tencent Keen Security Lab will release a jailbreak, we’re hoping that SparkZheng will provide details that will help someone like coolstar to develop the iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak. SparkZheng has also credited Twitter user @bxl1989 for the iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak in the video.
With iOS 11.4 release imminent, which could be the last update for iOS 11, it may be prudent to wait for Apple to release iOS 11.4 before releasing the jailbreak so that they don’t patch the iOS 11.3.1 vulnerabilities in iOS 11.4. Until then coolstar should release the iOS 11.2 – iOS 11.2.6 jailbreak.
We also expect the iOS 11.2 – iOS 11.2.6 jailbreak or iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak to be a semi-tethered jailbreak like the Electra iOS 11.1.2 Jailbreak. A semi-untethered jailbreak is similar to an untethered jailbreak, it gives the ability to reboot your iOS device on its own. On each boot, the iOS device startup sequence is unmodified and it boots into its original, non-jailbroken state. However, instead of needing to use a tool from a computer to re-jailbreak the iOS device again, like a tethered or semi-tethered cases, the user can re-jailbreak their device with the help of an app running on the iOS device. While an untethered jailbreak would have been ideal, I think the semi-tethered jailbreak is quite convenient and not as bad as a tethered jailbreak.
Are you excited about the possibility of an iOS 11.3 jailbreak? Let us know in the comments below.
