Do you have an old iPhone, let’s say 8 years old, and you are frustrated about the fact that you can’t jailbreak it? You may want other apps outside of the Apple Store, or you might not like Apple’s security services. Whatever the reason might be, a security researcher nicknamed AxiomX claims to have the solution for you, a brand new ingenious jailbreak.
The new jailbreak utilizes a new unpatchable exploit called Checkm8 that exploits vulnerabilities in Apple’s Bootrom (secure boot ROM) to give iOS users full control over their devices.
It can jailbreak iPhones with A5 to A11 chipsets
AxiomX’s finding can help jailbreak all of Apple’s mobile devices released between 2011 and 2017, including iPhone models from the 4S and up to the iPhone X.
AxiomX claims to had been working on the jailbreak tool for a whole year, and that Checkm8 is far more efficient than the jailbreaks previously released for Apple’s iPhones.
Checkm8 is permanent
Bootrom jailbreaks are permanent, can’t be fixed with a patch and Checkm8 is no exception. A bootrom is a read-only memory chip containing the very first code to load when a system starts up. Since bootrom code is the core of the device’s startup process, and it shouldn’t be possible to change it, finding a bug in that code is the dream of any hacker.
AxiomX’s jailbreak is currently available on GitHub as a beta release. Some technical skills are required to install it as it has the potential to block devices easily.
For those unfamiliar with the term “jailbreak” when it comes to iOS: it means bypassing the restrictions Apple puts on the operating system, in order to take full control of the device. With a jailbroken device, you can install apps and tweaks that aren’t authorized by Apple, but you also remove the tough security protections that Apple has built into iOS.
