For years Apple has been playing a game of cat and mouse with jailbreakers. Apple releases a new version of iOS, hackers get busy finding security vulnerabilities to exploit, a new jailbreak comes out utilizing those hard-earned exploits, and Apple fixes the security holes in a new iOS version. The cycle has been happening for years.
A team of hackers called the Evad3rs were responsible for the recent iOS 6 Evasi0n jailbreak, and Apple just released iOS 6.1.3 to patch the related security holes. Of the 6 exploits that were fixed, Apple has publicly credited 4 to the Evad3rs, all of which are chained together to give hackers root access to iOS.
Here’s an interesting number for you: just a month after release, the Evasi0n jailbreak has already cracked wide open an astonishing 14 million iOS devices. Considering there’s only 23 million iDevices running jailbreaks across all iOS versions, that means that the vast majority of jailbroken devices are running a flavor of iOS 6.1.
Apple doesn’t like jailbreaks. Never has, never will… which is why it’s odd that the evasi0n jailbreak, first unleashed to the world with iOS 6.1, has seen two small bug fix releases of iOS come and go — iOS 6.1.1 and iOS 6.1.2 — that don’t fix the exploit.
Better get your jailbreak in while you can, though, because word is that Apple is now beta testing a new version of iOS 6.1.3 that closes the exploit for good.
Apple released iOS 6.1.2 earlier today, and jailbreakers are officially safe from the brand new firmware. Two updates to iOS 6.1 have been released since the Evasi0n jailbreak was unleashed, and Apple has yet to patch the hack. It was revealed earlier today that 6.1.2 was still safe on Twitter.
The Evasi0n website has been updated to officially recognize 6.1.2 as a supported firmware version. You can download it now and use the free tool to jailbreak any iOS device running 6.1.2. Existing jailbreakers on 6.1 have no reason to update to 6.1.2 and re-jailbreak unless they are affected by the Microsoft Exchange bug.
iOS 6.1.2 is out now, quashing some battery life and Microsoft Exchange issues… but is it safe to update if you’re a jailbreaker?
Right now, the answer to that question is a qualified no. If you want to keep your jailbreak, you shouldn’t update yet, but according to Team Evad3rs member Planetbeing, iOS 6.1.2 will in all likelihood be jailbreakable in very quick time. [Update: Planetbeing now says that Evasi0n will be updated tonight with iOS 6.1.2 support!]
Evasi0n has been updated to support the iOS 6.1.1 firmware that was released for the iPhone 4S on Monday. This allows users who are suffering the 3G connection issues to update their iPhone’s software and then instantly restore their jailbreak.
Apple released iOS 6.1.1 today. Interestingly, the software was only made available as a critical update for the iPhone 4S. All of Apple’s other iOS devices are still on iOS 6.1. There were bugs in iOS 6.1 relating to cellular connectivity and battery life, but the concerns were specifically related to only the 4S.
Shortly after the evasi0n jailbreak made its much-anticipated debut earlier this week, Apple pushed out its iOS 6.1.1 beta to registered developers. We suspected that the new release would patch the exploits that evasi0n used to hack iOS devices, but fortunately for the many millions of people enjoying its benefits, that’s not the case. At least not yet.
Display Recorder, a popular tool that records what’s happening on the display of a jailbroken iOS device, has today been updated to support the iOS 6.1 firmware. The update follows this week’s evasi0n release, which became the first untethered jailbreak which supports the latest iOS devices — including the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini.
