IOS 7.1.2 Jailbroken

A group of security researchers at the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) have recently revealed a way to jailbreak the current generation of Apple iOS devices such as iPhone and iPad, running the latest iOS software.

Analyzing previously patched vulnerabilities with incomplete fixes discovered the jailbreak.  This new jailbreak will enable circumvention of Apple’s closed platform and enable people to dig around in the system and tweak it to their liking.

To patch all vulnerabilities for a current, complex software system such as iOS is frequently difficult because of the volume of bugs and the response-time requirements involved. This latest jailbreak shows that rapid workarounds leave these devices vulnerable to exploitation.

Yeongjin Jang, one of the Ph.D. students who led this study said, ” Our work shows that software vendors must patch all publicly disclosed threats, as they may be exploited in other, equally disruptive attacks.”

Tielei Wang, a GTISC faculty member who worked closely with Jang as lead of the project said, “We start by finding new ways to exploit vulnerabilities with incomplete patches…Then, we use those vulnerabilities to discover new avenues of attack. We’ll detail these vulnerabilities and the exploit techniques that we developed.”

During Black Hat USA, the GTISC research team are set to inform people of the process for jailbreaking the current version of iOS (7.1.2) on any iOS device, including the latest flagship model; iPhone 5s.

The Georgia Tech team that comprises of Ph.D. students Yeongjin Jang and Byoungyoung Lee, and research scientists Tielei Wang and Billy Lau were named as the people that were responsible for the jailbreak.

Do you think tech companies should do more to protect operating systems from being hacked into and altered?  As always, if you would like to leave a sensible comment, then please do so in the comments section below.

[Image via es.blobic]

SOURCE: http://phys.org/news/2014-08-jailbreak-ios.html