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Apple has said that it has a patch to address the iOS security flaw exploited by the Jailbreakme web site.
The flaw used by the developers of Jailbreakme.com has already been addressed by Apple in a patch, according to a report by USA Today. However the Apple spokesperson interviewed could not provide a release time frame for the update.
Jailbreaking Apple products refers to hacking the device to gain control over the operating system and thereby allowing third party applications other than those approved by Apple to be installed on the devices.
Recently the site jailbreakme.com came to the public attention due to being able to jailbreak an iPhone 4 merely by visiting the web site with the Safari browser on the smartphone. While many might enjoy the convenience of this approach, the site is actually an example of a hack which gains control over the operating system in the smartphone.
While jailbreakme.com is relatively innocuous (Apple would doubtless disagree), the same technique could be deployed on other web sites with more harmful consequences. Apple will be keen to patch the flaw as soon as possible for that reason alone, although doubtless removing a convenient method to jailbreak the new iPhone 4 adds additional motivation for a patch.
Apple so far retains complete control over security matters relating to portable devices like the iPhone, iPod and iPad with no third party developers given the technical details or allowed to publish security solutions. Therefore users of these devices have no choice but to wait until Apple issue an OS update to close vulnerabilities such as this.
