Paul Morris·

iOS 12.0 – 12.1 Sandbox Escape Released, Here’s What That Means For An iOS 12 Jailbreak

There has been some unexpected movement in the iOS jailbreak community. A new powerful iOS/macOS Safari sandbox escape has been published, affecting iOS 12.0 through iOS 12.1, with many feeling that it could ultimately yield an iOS 12.x jailbreak going forward.

There has been a period of uncertainty and pronounced calm as far as an iOS 12.x jailbreak is concerned recently.

When the platform was first released, some initial excitement regarding iOS 12 was being shared around the jailbreak community but that all seemed to die down rather quickly with more focus being paid to the unc0ver iOS 11 jailbreak over anything related to iOS 12. Now, thanks to this announcement via Catalin Cimpanu it seems that focus has once again shifted to Apple’s latest firmware.

The latest information published is an iOS and macOS Safari sandbox escape via a heap overflow bug in Apple’s QuartzCore framework. This is the framework that Apple provides in its iOS and macOS SDKs that contains the classes and supporting elements for all Core Animation functionality and techniques within Apple’s ecosystem. It also contains APIs and information pertinent to Core Image. There is a function within the QuartzCore framework that “does not notice the case of integer overflow,” which is what has allowed this work to happen and be published with a documented exploit.

There is also a belief that the previously published Pangu Team IOHID vulnerability could be used in conjunction with this latest discovery and publication to produce an iOS 12.0 to iOS 12.1 jailbreak going forward.

There has been a fair bit of chatter on Reddit from developers like @pwn20wnd who have suggested that this work could take an additional 3-6 months to actually see the light of day in terms of public-facing jailbreak as the Pangu work hasn’t been offered as a plug-and-play solution. With that in mind, it could be a few more months until TFP0 is achieved.

It may appear that a jailbreak isn’t immediately imminent but it’s at least a positive that work is happening and that some progress is still being made as far as iOS 12 is concerned. It may not be as fast as some in the community would like but it’s definitely a push in the correct direction for those with an interest in jailbreaking and with an iOS 12 device in hand.

(Source: Reddit, Twitter [1], [2])

You may also like to check out:

You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple, and the Web.