Apple Drops iOS Jailbreak Detection

Apple [AAPL] has quietly dropped an API in iOS that is used to detect if the iPhone has been jailbroken.

The iOS jailbreak detection API was first added when iOS 4.0 was launched in June of this year. In the latest version that was released a couple of weeks back, iOS 4.2.1, the API is either now disabled or completely removed.

What the API does is allow services to query the device. iOS then “confesses” that it has been jailbroken. When this happens, a corporate helpdesk (assuming the phone is used for things like Exchange server), could block the jailbroken iPhone from accessing the companies email and services due to security risks that a jailbroken device brings to the network.

This ability has been removed by disabling this API although we do hear that there are other methods to get this kind of information from a device. Apple hasn’t commented on the removal/disabling of the iOS jailbreak detection API.

Via: NetworkWorld

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