Apple acknowledges evad3r jailbreakers found 4 of 6 exploits fixed with iOS 6.1.3
Taking a closer look at the security release notes for Apple's latest iOS 6.1.3 update, it was discovered that the tech giant gave credit to the hackers behind the popular evasi0n jailbreak for finding four of six patched exploits.
As noted by The Next Web, the security note that came along with Tuesday's iOS 6.1.3 release credited evad3rs with unearthing four of the six flaws fixed by update.
Evad3rs leveraged some of the exploits to create the evasi0n jailbreak, which allowed iPhone 5 and iPad mini owners to "liberate" their devices. The untethered app was downloaded seven million times in its first four days of availability, leveraging exploits within iOS to grant users greater control over system-level functions usually reserved for first-party apps.
The newest iOS 6.1.3 reportedly breaks evasi0n, as reported in February when a beta version of the update was found to patch the exploits used for the jailbreak, but co-creator David Wang said there may be enough remaining flaws in the operating system to create an entirely new liberation tool.
The exploits discovered by evad3rs:
As noted by The Next Web, the security note that came along with Tuesday's iOS 6.1.3 release credited evad3rs with unearthing four of the six flaws fixed by update.
Evad3rs leveraged some of the exploits to create the evasi0n jailbreak, which allowed iPhone 5 and iPad mini owners to "liberate" their devices. The untethered app was downloaded seven million times in its first four days of availability, leveraging exploits within iOS to grant users greater control over system-level functions usually reserved for first-party apps.
The newest iOS 6.1.3 reportedly breaks evasi0n, as reported in February when a beta version of the update was found to patch the exploits used for the jailbreak, but co-creator David Wang said there may be enough remaining flaws in the operating system to create an entirely new liberation tool.
The exploits discovered by evad3rs:
A security flaw that allowed for the bypassing of an iPhone's lock screen, which turned out to be a logic issue in handling emergency calls, was found by Christopher Heffley of theMedium.ca, while a WebKit bug was discovered by Nils and Jon from MWR Labs working with HP TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative.CVE-2013-0977
dyld
Impact: A local user may be able to execute unsigned code
Description: A state management issue existed in the handling of
Mach-O executable files with overlapping segments. This issue was
addressed by refusing to load an executable with overlapping
segments.
CVE-2013-0978
Kernel
Impact: A local user may be able to determine the address of
structures in the kernel
Description: An information disclosure issue existed in the ARM
prefetch abort handler. This issue was addressed by panicking if the
prefetch abort handler is not being called from an abort context.
CVE-2013-0979
Lockdown
Impact: A local user may be able to change permissions on arbitrary
files
Description: When restoring from backup, lockdownd changed
permissions on certain files even if the path to the file included a
symbolic link. This issue was addressed by not changing permissions
on any file with a symlink in its path.
CVE-2013-0981
USB
Impact: A local user may be able to execute arbitrary code in the
kernel
Description: The IOUSBDeviceFamily driver used pipe object pointers
that came from userspace. This issue was addressed by performing
additional validation of pipe object pointers.
Comments
I wonder if Apple credited evad3rs as a slap to their face after dissecting the EvasiOn jailbreak. I can't see evad3rs being all proud of Apple giving them credit for the fix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
I wonder if Apple credited evad3rs as a slap to their face after dissecting the EvasiOn jailbreak. I can't see evad3rs being all proud of Apple giving them credit for the fix.
I'm not sure I follow your logic. Apple's OS was exploited; why would evad3rs feel that they got slapped in the face? evad3rs dissected iOS 6.x with no help from Apple, while Apple had all the help in the world in the form of the jailbreak and a play-by-play to see how the jailbreak was accomplished.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/02/05/inside-evasi0n-the-most-elaborate-jailbreak-to-ever-hack-your-iphone/
Seems like OS X could potentially be susceptible to a couple of these exploits as well (the dyld and USB ones).
Not if the tweets from Musclenerd are anything to go by.
https://twitter.com/MuscleNerd/status/314073229268496384
Apple is still signing 6.1.2 for now but I'd save blobs asap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazda 3s
I'm not sure I follow your logic. Apple's OS was exploited; why would evad3rs feel that they got slapped in the face?
Apple giving them credit for the fix I think is a slap to the face. That would be like me stealing your girlfriend and giving you the credit for introducing us at our wedding.
That's a good question. I would imagine it depending on the individual hacker.
I am personally happy to see Apple finally give these frontiersmen some credit for finding flaws in their code. There was a time they not only ignored them but also ignored the holes they found.
Perhaps it's a new double-edged strategy to prevent jailbreaking from being too popular as they surely won't win to keep it from being illegal. If they make it widely known they will close any holes that are used for the jailbreaking community those willing to give out their exploits freely may dwindle and what is given out will just make iOS stronger in the long run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
Apple giving them credit for the fix I think is a slap to the face. That would be like me stealing your girlfriend and giving you the credit for introducing us at our wedding.
As Chris posted above, I don't think they see it that way.
Bottom line, Apple is the only one that really get "punked" in all of this. The hackers do this stuff in their free time knowing full well that their software will eventually be "shut down"; and they provide their services for free. They will just move on to the next exploit, as they always do.
41 years of prison --> wrong behavior.
Giving credits and fixing the flaw --> correct behavior.
Should be simple enough to remember.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazda 3s
As Chris posted above, I don't think they see it that way.
Bottom line, Apple is the only one that really get "punked" in all of this. The hackers do this stuff in their free time knowing full well that their software will eventually be "shut down"; and they provide their services for free. They will just move on to the next exploit, as they always do.
Apple gets free security analyses, which means that these holes that would anyway have been found by black hats (think Mafia, Russia, Chinese, secret services etc) are one risk less for everyone...
Bottom line, Apple has class, style and flair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chriscaskey
Not if the tweets from Musclenerd are anything to go by.
https://twitter.com/MuscleNerd/status/314073229268496384
Apple is still signing 6.1.2 for now but I'd save blobs asap.
Done for all my devices. The only reason I jailbreak is for SBSettings, because I love having screen brightness, Airplane mode, Wifi and BT toggle among other things just a simple swipe away. If Apple would just copy that functionality instead of making me go through layers of settings menus, I'd be one happy user.
No it would be more like you kidnapping my underage daughter and texting me about it, and I then came and took her away, but didn't report you to the police since she was unharmed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
Apple giving them credit for the fix I think is a slap to the face. That would be like me stealing your girlfriend and giving you the credit for introducing us at our wedding.
This is just childish nonsense. "Credit" can never be a slap in the face. It's credit. It's an accolade, a praising, a giving of due honour for a job well done. Only a immature fool would take it as a negative.
Your example is a bit off as well. If someone is getting married to your "girlfriend," that's not an insult either and she wasn't "stolen" from you. In the first case, if she liked you to the same degree it would be you getting married, and in the second case a girlfriend isn't "property" anyway.
There is an issue in the jailbreak community though where they have a limited number of exploits. If they run out, there's no more jailbreak. Sometimes jailbreak teams put each other down for releasing exploits too early as they are fixed too soon.
I don't think there's any reason to assume Apple is issuing a slap in the face on purpose but at the same time, I don't think the jailbreak teams find these exploits to help Apple's security so the credit is given contrary to why they find them, which I'd guess is why some people assume it's a slap in the face.
It's like they are saying, 'thanks to evad3rs for showing us all the exploits you were using to jailbreak our devices, now we can stop you doing it'.
It's all just a cat and mouse game anyway, the people who are into doing it know how to downgrade their devices. It's better for users that serious exploits are patched.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lightknight
AT&T, that's the way to behave. Take notes please.
41 years of prison --> wrong behavior.
Giving credits and fixing the flaw --> correct behavior.
Should be simple enough to remember.
And what do the 114k folks that had their emails potentially sold to spammers get? He didn't need to harvest that many email addresses to make his point and he certainly didn't have to threaten to sell them etc
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
This is just childish nonsense. "Credit" can never be a slap in the face. It's credit. It's an accolade, a praising, a giving of due honour for a job well done. Only a immature fool would take it as a negative.
Your example is a bit off as well. If someone is getting married to your "girlfriend," that's not an insult either and she wasn't "stolen" from you. In the first case, if she liked you to the same degree it would be you getting married, and in the second case a girlfriend isn't "property" anyway.
Ok fine, if my example makes you think I believe girlfriends are "property" (/roll of eyes), try this. Apple's basketball team had their playbook stolen from them by the Evad3rs basketball team. The Evad3rs studied the playbook and came up with set plays to counter Apples plays. Apple changes their playbook before the game and beats the Evad3rs. After the win, the Apple coach gives credit to Evad3rs by letting Apple know to change their playbook. I don't believe the Evad3rs submitted a bug report to Apple telling them about these exploits. Apple giving them credit for the fix is a slap to their face. It's not an accolade in this case because it is defeating the Evad3rs purpose. Take it easy on the name calling "Childish nonsense", "Only a immature fool would take it as a negative", you made me cry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
Ok fine, if my example makes you think I believe girlfriends are "property" (/roll of eyes), try this. Apple's basketball team had their playbook stolen from them by the Evad3rs basketball team. The Evad3rs studied the playbook and came up with set plays to counter Apples plays. Apple changes their playbook before the game and beats the Evad3rs. After the win, the Apple coach gives credit to Evad3rs by letting Apple know to change their playbook. I don't believe the Evad3rs submitted a bug report to Apple telling them about these exploits. Apple giving them credit for the fix is a slap to their face. It's not an accolade in this case because it is defeating the Evad3rs purpose. Take it easy on the name calling "Childish nonsense", "Only a immature fool would take it as a negative", you made me cry.
But you act as if Apple has somehow "won". The game is not over... this cycle repeats itself again and again and again. Apple releases new version of iOS, hackers crack it, Apple releases fix; rinse and repeat. Only this is the first time that the jailbreakers have ever been acknowledged by Apple for their hard work.
I'd say that's pretty "cool" in their book.
Let's face it. A lot of these groups partly do what they do because they like acknowledgement and recognition, otherwise why not release anonymously?
Now these jailbreaking groups know that, if they find an exploit, they're going to get more recognition than they ever dreamed of.
There is a very strong possibility that Apple just recruited a shitload of very skilled exploit finders, who will work for free to discover exploits, in the hope that their work becomes "published" in the next iOS update.
Pretty God-damn clever.
I don't think that's an accurate analogy at all.
It's more like, the opposing team studied Apple's plays (not their playbook as they don't have access to source code) and then constructed ways around Apple's plays. Apple has countered by changing up its game so those flawed plays can no longer be exploited.
They don't have to issue a bug fix to Apple for Apple to know about it. They don't even need the source code of the jailbreak to see what its exploiting on the iDevice since it will be apparent with what the app is sending to the device.
I really don't see why you think this is a slap in the face. It's like saying Happy Birthday to someone and having get offended because they think it means they look a year older.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTR
Actually, this appears to be a very clever play by Apple.
Let's face it. A lot of these groups partly do what they do because they like acknowledgement and recognition, otherwise why not release anonymously?
Now, these jailbreaking groups know that, if they find an exploit, they're going to get more recognition than they ever dreamed of.
There is a very strong possibility that Apple just recruited a shitload of very skilled exploit finders, who will work for free to discover exploits, in the hope that their work becomes "published" in the next iOS update.
Pretty God damn clever.
Except nobody knows who the Evad3rs are. Anybody could say on their resume that they were part of the Evad3rs team but no one would really know for sure. I guess it could make you feel warm inside for just knowing yourself.