Someone reportedly published the alleged source code for the iOS bootloader, iBoot, potentially opening a door to hackers and jailbreakers, which can help detect vulnerabilities in Apple's mobile operating system.
The Motherboard reports that the iBoot source code is from iOS 9 and leaked through GitHub. Although the code is from an earlier version of iOS, its parts are probably the same in the current iOS 11.
IBoot is a key part of the iOS bootstrap safe chain, a highly sensitive process that runs when you turn on an iOS device.
The secure boot chain ensures that the lower levels of software in the operating system are not altered and only loads the software digitally signed by Apple.
Due to the sensitivity of the feature, Apple also offers the highest reward (200.000 dollars) in the iOS bug bounty program to researchers who detect vulnerabilities in the boot firmware.
Jonathan Levin, author of many books on developing iOS and OS X, said the source code of iBoot seems to be real, as it seems to fit in the code he was doing reverse-engineering itself.
It is not yet known who leaked the source code to GitHub but it first appeared four months ago via a link on Reddit posted by a user named 'apple_internals'. The leak was originally hosted by Mega and is no longer available.
Of course, Apple is trying to protect its code and so the GitHub page that contained the iBoot source code was replaced with a DMCA notice by an Apple law firm (Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton). DMCA announcements have also been implemented in over a dozen iBoot cloned repositories.
