$1 million bounty claimed for remote jailbreaking iPhone running iOS 9: Report

A few months ago, Apple had gone to say that the recent iPhones based on iOS 9 were impossible to unlock ‘in most cases’ without the passcode. However, going against all odds, an unidentified hacking group/individual gained access to the smartphones and unlocked them by exploiting the web browser.

According to a report by Motherboard , somebody claimed the $1 million bounty set by the startup Zerodium, according to its founder Chaouki Bekrar, a notorious merchant of unknown, or zero-day, vulnerabilities.

A tweet was put out by Zerodium as well stating that the challenge has been won.

https://twitter.com/Zerodium/status/661240316331069443?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Chaouki Bekrar said that the winning team found a “number of vulnerabilities” in Chrome and iOS to bypass “almost all mitigations” and achieve “a remote and full browser-based (untethered) jailbreak.” He says, “The winning team has submitted the exploits just a few hours before the expiration of the Zerodium bounty.”

However, Apple is yet to confirm or acknowledge the exploit. No one had found a way up until now to jailbreak an iPhone remotely for more than a year since iOS 7.

Zerodium had last month  challenged  that it would offer a $1 million (890,000-euro) bounty to hackers who can find a way to breach Apple’s latest iOS 9 mobile operating system. To win the money, hackers must use a web page or text message to remotely bypass the iOS 9 security and discretely install an application on the iPhone or iPad by October 31.