Unpatchable hardware flaw in older Apple chips enables iPhone jailbreak, discovered by European firm Paradigm Shift
Tags Consumer · Hardware
European offensive cybersecurity company Paradigm Shift disclosed an unpatchable hardware vulnerability in older Apple chips that enables a full iPhone jailbreak, allowing attackers to unlock and extract data from affected devices. The flaw cannot be fixed via software updates because it is baked into the silicon. The discovery has implications for both consumer device security and the forensics industry — tools like Cellebrite's Graykey already exploit similar low-level vulnerabilities. Apple has not publicly commented on the disclosure. The affected chip generation covers iPhones from several recent model years.
Technical significance
Unpatchable silicon flaws are the most serious class of hardware vulnerability because they persist for the entire device lifetime. For the forensics and law enforcement market, this type of exploit is valuable because it can bypass even the latest iOS security protections on affected devices. For consumers, it means that older iPhones they may still be using have a permanent security weakness that will never be fixed.