According to a Forbes report, China’s ‘Keen Team’ and Team Pangu are working together on an iOS 9 jailbreak for release just in time for its public launch this autumn. One of the crew’s researchers, Liang Chen, told that publication in an interview that Keen Team is plotting to release its first ever iOS jailbreak with the assistance of Chinese hackers known as Team Pangu, the same group of hackers who released the iOS 8 jailbreak last year.
In the past, Keen Team has won $27,500 and $40,000 for exploiting iPhones at the 2013 and 2014 Mobile Pwn2Own competitions respectively, by breaking Apple’s Safari browser, and are frequently referred to as one of the most respected hacker teams in the world. As of yet, they have never released any jailbreak solution to the public, which means an iOS 9 jailbreak for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch will be their first jailbreaking endeavour. However, Chen has made it clear that he isn’t a fan of the commercialised aspect of jailbreaking.
“Chen told FORBES he may keep vulnerabilities for future hacking contests, or hand over to bug bounty organisations, like HP’s ZDI Initiative, which runs the Pwn2Own competitions. In some cases he might inform Apple first.
“We want to release it just after iOS 9, that’s our plan,” Chen added. “It depends how lucky we are.”
Many Chinese app stores pay hackers for their jailbreaks so that when users download the hack, they are offered the option of installing the third-party marketplace.
