Pod2g Asks For Your Help to Find Exploits to Jailbreak iOS 5.1

Two heads are better than one, right? Pod2g thinks so, as he has just posted some guidelines on how you can help the jailbreak community by sending in crash reports to discover vulnerabilities in iOS 5.1. Pod2g was the master behind the untethered iOS 5.0.1 A4/A5 jailbreaks. Earlier, he noted he working on finding a solution to jailbreak iOS 5.1. Now he wants your help.

To jailbreak a device, hackers need a set of exploitable vulnerabilities :

• a code injection vector : a vulnerability in the core components of iOS that leads to custom, unsigned code execution.
• a privilege escalation vulnerability : it’s usualy not enough to have unsigned code execution. Nearly all iOS applications and services are sandboxed, so one often need to escape from the jail to trigger the kernel exploit.
• a kernel vulnerability : the kernel is the real target of the jailbreak payload. The jailbreak has to patch it to remove the signed code enforcement. Only the kernel can patch the kernel, that’s why a code execution vulnerability in the context of the kernel is needed.
• an untethering vulnerability : when the device boots, it is unpatched, thus cannot run unsigned code. Thus, to start the jailbreak payload at boot time, a code execution vector either in the services bootstrap or in the loading of binaries is mandatory.

You can help if you can crash either a core application (Safari, Mail, etc…) or the kernel in a repeatable way. A kernel crash is easy to recognize : it reboots the device.