iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 Untethered Jailbreak Update: Priority for A5+ Devices lowered

BY Jason

Published 1 Nov 2013

sn0wbreeze

iH8sn0w, developer of Sn0wbreeze, who is working on the untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3 and iOS 6.1.4 has just given an update on the progress.

Unfortunately, we’ve some bad news for folks with an A5+ device (devices launched after iPhone 4) who are waiting for the iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 jailbreak. 

iH8sn0w has announced that the priority on the untethered jailbreak for A5+ devices has been lowered, as the vulnerabilities that they planned to use in the jailbreak are still working in iOS 7, so they’ve decided to preserve them as they could be useful to develop the iOS 7 jailbreak rather than exposing them by releasing the untethered jailbreak for A5+ devices.

People are probably wondering why focus on A5+ devices is being lowered in priority. This is not because of difficulties, it is actually because it turns out a few of the vulns we were planning on using still work on iOS 7 (kind of exciting [yes and no]). We do not want to publish these vulns as they have the potential of being used in a future iOS 7.x A5+ jailbreak. With that being said, we are not removing our focus on an A5+ 6.1.3/6.1.4 jailbreak completely. We are looking for some vulns that exist in 6.1.3/6.1.4 but not iOS 7. The problem is… in terms of security iOS 7 looks likes an iOS 6.2 :P. This wouldn’t be a problem if Apple did not silently kill the lockdown socket bug. We were initially planning on using that vuln to recycle the shebang attack used in evasi0n to remount the rootfs, but when I found out it was patched, I initially said it wouldn’t halt the progress of the jb. This was before we found out the other vuln we had to get root and remount the rootfs as r/w still works in iOS 7. 

So for now they’re working on the untethered jailbreak only for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4G (as you know there is a tethered jailbreak available currently for those devices). They could release a Cydia package that would convert the tethered jailbreak to an untethered one.

They might release the untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 for the rest of the devices when evad3rs team releases the iOS 7 jailbreak to prevent disclosing any new vulnerabilities.

He hasn’t provided any ETA on when the untethered jailbreak for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4G running on iOS 6.1.3 will be released.

So for A5+ devices owners who haven’t upgraded to iOS 7 and eagerly waiting for the jailbreak, we are back to square one. However, it is the right decision not to release an iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 untethered jailbreak that could compromise development of the iOS 7 jailbreak.

We’ll let you know as soon as there is any update so don’t forget to join our Facebook Fan pagefollow us on Twitteradd us to your circles on Google+ or subscribe to our RSS feed.

[via iH8sn0w’s blog]

Related: iOS 7 Jailbreak Status Report