Last week, Team Pangu unveiled iOS 10.3.1 jailbreak at Janus Mobile Security Conference. A few Chinese sources are now reporting that Team Pangu has sold Pangu103 jailbreak to Apple.
Let’s find out what’s going on and what isn’t.
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Pangu Sells Jailbreak Exploit for $1.25 Million
According to many Chinese users, Pangu team has sold the iOS 10.3-10.3.1 jailbreak exploit to Apple for a whopping 1.25 million US dollars. This security vulnerability will then be closed by Apple in the next beta release of iOS 10.3.2.
For the uninitiated, 0-day exploits can fetch hackers hundreds of thousands of dollars. The amount can even go up to millions depending on how powerful the exploit is.
This new development is spreading like wildfire in the jailbreak community. Luca Todesco, the developer of Yalu jailbreak, has a unique take on the whole Pangu fiasco.
If Apple was buying jailbreaks at 1.25m$ I’d be a very rich man
— qwertyoruiop (@qwertyoruiopz) May 1, 2017
If this is true, Team Pangu may never release the iOS 10.3-10.3.1 jailbreak. Some users also suggested that Pangu should accept the bounty and then “leak” the jailbreak secretly.
This, of course, would be illegal and result in a breach of contract.
However, a few things do seem fishy here. Apple’s Bug Bounty Program pays a bounty of $200,000 for iBoot security vulnerabilities. 1.25 million USD is a rather high amount and is inconsistent with thier Bug Bounty Program.
It is also possible that Apple may have paid them handsomely because their exploit was extremely powerful or they showcased a collection of exploits.
How it all Started
A “trusted” Twitter account uploaded a video of Pangu103 jailbreak running on iPhone 7. The same Twitter handle also posted that Pangu jailbreak will arrive within a week.
The “trusted” Twitter account has now been removed. Here’s the video that was uploaded on Youtube.
[OFFICIAL] #Pangu #jailbreak for iOS 10.3-10.3.1 demo. PLEASE [[RETWEET]] IF YOU WANT THIS JAILBREAK. pic.twitter.com/Of0rTPjDwZ
— Yalu Jailbreak (@Yalujb) April 26, 2017
The account was created in 2017 and simply posted a few pictures from Janus Conference. This led to many people believing that this guy visited the Conference himself.
Consequently, any further reports regarding the release of the tool were also considered legitimate.
What next for the Jailbreak Community?
It seems as if Team Pangu is no longer interested in developing iOS jailbreak. They may have moved on to information security research and penetration testing.
With Luca quitting the jailbreak scene, not many hackers are willing to work on a jailbreak.
Team Pangu is our last hope of getting a 10.3 jailbreak. Other popular jailbreak teams such as TaiG and Evad3rs have either disbanded or are no longer active in the jailbreak scene.
I recommend all users to wait and stay on their current firmware. Unless something concrete surfaces, stay on the lowest firmware possible.
As always, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.
They sold the freedom!
Best way is sell your phone, buy a android phone what you like and have a old iOS iPad for testing if you wish. With Apple you will ever have again the same,you ever will be to search for a new exploit or you only will have an old ios firmware.
With Android you can have with a 4 or 5 years old phone a new Firmware like xda or other.
Sorry but I don’t like it to spend my time to apple anymore. Next will come “Augmented Reality ” and other, if you stay on old FW you don’t have it. Apple make the Hardware in combination with firmware realy fast but it isn’t! What do you have today with a Hardware where have 500mb or 1gb ram only? With 2-3 updates your hardware will be slowly every time if you make an update and that is it what apple do. In 1-2 years your Hardware will be very slow but the same Android Hardware what whas slowly for 2 years is very fast now. A mobile hardware with 4-6gb RAM and a 2.5Ghz CPU, what will make it slowly!?
I agree with you and a lot of users have actually moved over to Android. As for me, switching to Android is something I wouldn’t want to do, at least right now. I just like owning a jailbroken device way too much.
After reading this, I’m currently on 10.2.1 iPhone 7 plus….. should I stay on this or update to 10.3.1 or ??????
Hello, Andrew. Stay on iOS 10.2.1 right now until further notice.
Oh no, maybe the account was removed because Pangu did accept the 1.25 million….. oh well if the Jailbreak doesn’t come out this week, it means that Pangu most likely sold it to Apple, I mean you’d have to accept that much money. Where do you make the money from as a hacker/exploiter/security researcher for Jailbreak….
The account was not related to Team Pangu at all. Yes, if they don’t release it, it’s likely they sold it to Apple.
0-day exploits are very valuable and hard to find. Hence, their high price.