iOS 16 has been a particularly painful version of iOS jailbreak for the community. New security features combined with fewer developers available made iOS 16 one of the least recommended versions if you want to jailbreak.’ jailbreak for the community. New security features combined with fewer developers available made iOS 16 one of the least recommended versions if you want to jailbreak.

While Cowabunga does exist for iOS 16.0 up to iOS 16.1.2, it is not a full jailbreak and it can only do a limited amount of modifications to the device. That is about to change with the release of kfd, short for kernel file descriptor.

What is KFD and why it is a game-changer for iOS Jailbreaking?

After many months of silence with nothing important happening for iOS 16 on modern devices, out of the blue we got a brand new release today.

Developer @_p0up0u_ released their kfd project containing two major kernel vulnerabilities that can be used for a jailbreak.

According to Dopamine Jailbreak developer, opa334, if we get a PPL bypass too we would be able to combine these and get a jailbreak on iOS 15.2 and newer for A12+ devices.

The kfd project is free and open-sourced on GitHub. It contains both exploits and two very detailed writeups on how the exploits work and the vulnerabilities behind them.

The exploits included are the following:

• puaf_physpuppet – Exploits CVE-2023-23536 – Patched in iOS 16.4.
• puaf_smith – Exploits CVE-2023-32434 – Patched in iOS 16.5.1.

iOS 16.6 Beta 2 is still signed and it is compatible with the KDF exploit! If you’re running iOS 16.5.1, upgrade to iOS 16.6 Beta 2 as fast as you can! Do NOT force backups from iOS 17 on iOS 16.6 Beta! Things will break.

Between these two exploits, the community now has kernel exploits from iOS 15.0 all the way up to iOS 16.5 on all modern devices (A12+). This is huge for the community which has been facing a serious drought in the past year.

Can these exploits be used for a real jailbreak on iOS 16.5 and lower?

You bet! These are powerful kernel exploits that use a novel method to read and write kernel memory on Apple devices, including on iOS.

With this and a PPL bypass, we would be able to update Dopamine jailbreak (or other tools) to support iOS 15.2 – iOS 16.5 even on modern devices like iPhone 14, iPhone 13, and so on.

Frankly, the release of the kfd project and its associated kernel exploits is the biggest release in the jailbreak community since iOS 16 was released.

To better understand how huge these vulnerabilities are, you can consult the writeup for the Smith exploit here and the writeup for the puaf_physpuppet exploit here.

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