Apple began to provide some researchers with jailbroken iPhones for research work

Earlier, Apple launched the Security Research Device (SRD) program for security researchers, which is to provide researchers with jailbroken iPhones for security research.

Of course, researchers need to agree to a lot of harsh agreements before they can apply, and then receive Apple’s review before they receive these special devices.

For example, when researchers discover vulnerabilities, they must notify Apple, and they cannot disclose vulnerability information in advance without Apple’s permission.

Although some researchers believe that Apple’s conditions are unacceptable and therefore reject the program, many researchers have finally participated in the program.

According to Apple’s instructions, these special versions of the iPhone can provide many advanced permissions, and researchers can use these permissions to directly check the internal components of the iOS system.

Therefore, these special versions of devices are also called jailbroken versions by researchers, because they can get advanced permissions just like the jailbroken iPhone.

But unlike jailbreaking, the latest version of iOS usually cannot be jailbroken in time, and the SRD version provided by Apple can be updated to the latest version and has advanced permissions.

You can even upgrade the beta version and get advanced permissions, which means that researchers can look for potential security vulnerabilities in advance to notify Apple for vulnerability bonuses.

At present, Apple has begun to send special versions of equipment to the first batch of applicants. This equipment is loaned to developers in the name of a lease to be renewed after one year.

Of course, Apple also has the right to take back these devices at any time if the researcher violates the Apple agreement. So participating in the program also means that there will be various restrictions.

According to previous news, these special versions provided by Apple will directly provide developers with Shell permissions and also support developers to directly run various debugging tools.

With this kind of advanced permissions, researchers can have a deep understanding of all parts of the system, especially in advance to try the beta version to find vulnerabilities to help Apple improve security.

After discovering security vulnerabilities and reporting them to Apple, you can also get security rewards provided by Apple. This can be regarded as an improvement of Apple’s criticized security program.

Via: appleinsider