Paul Morris·

Yalu Jailbreak Developer Demos Latest iOS 12 Beta 12 Hack

Italian developer and security researcher Luca Todesco is back with more iOS security-related goodness. This time around, the man who has previously been responsible for work such as Yalu and Yalu102, among others, has taken to social media to showcase what he is calling an “iOS 12 b12 full chain demo”.

For most average device owners who are simply interested in a jailbreak but who have no technical training or expertize, this latest demonstration could be a little misleading in the fact that it doesn’t showcase the device being fully jailbroken or running an app like Cydia.

It also doesn’t show the device linked to a debugger like most individuals do when they want to prove that they have achieved some kind of root access on the device. Instead, the accompanying video shows a relatively innocuous looking process which results in the native Messages app being hijacked to show a custom alert injected by Todesco into the system.

There is no denying that this discovery – and the subsequent work which has been built from the back of it – could be useful in a future iOS 12 jailbreak but, for now, it’s interesting to see that Todesco has managed to exploit iOS 12 beta 12 by turning off Wi-Fi and cellular entirely and by hooking up a USB-Ethernet adapter connected to the device over a camera connection kit for what he calls “security reasons.”

The accompanying 25-second video shows off what looks like a standard iOS installation, save for the addition of a new “Ethernet” option in Settings, but then shows a custom error message with the title “Hacked” and then the name of the developer.

In order to achieve this, Todesco has spun together a WebKit+Sandbox+Kernel-level hack which has compromised the system and given him control over what is and is not possible. This is definitely not enough to piece together a full iOS 12 jailbreak but is definitely a positive from that perspective. When you add this together with the fact that another Italian researcher by the name of Simon Ferrini has also discovered an iOS 12 vulnerability, then we are left in a very positive position that gives us a great deal to look forward to when Apple finally drops iOS 12 final in the coming days.

(Source:@qwertyoruiopz [Twitter])

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