“Apple intern was responsible for iBoot source code leaks”

Motherboard sources say a former Apple intern is responsible for stealing the source code of the iBoot bootloader, which appeared on GitHub this week. He only wanted to share the code with five close friends for security research.

The intern was pressured by his friends in the jailbreaking community, according to the article. They would only have had bona fide intentions and have no intention of sharing the source code further. Over time, this has happened and the people who got their hands on the code, spread it further. It is not clear which of the friends started this. Motherboard bases the story on conversations with members of this group of friends and screenshots and text messages of their conversations.

The site has also been able to view code and tools that have not been leaked. Now that it is clear to Apple where the original leak is, it is unlikely that these materials will leak out again.

The code is said to have been copied from Apple in 2016 and continued to circulate sometime in 2017. In the fall of 2017, screenshots of the source code started appearing on jailbreaker Discord servers to tease others. When the original group of friends learned of this, at least one of the friends decided to remove his copy, to distance himself from the case. Not much later, the code appeared on Reddit, but it didn’t get much attention there. The bomb didn’t explode until Wednesday, when the code appeared on GitHub.

The source code can provide insight into iOS bugs and vulnerabilities, but there is a chance that any interesting discoveries have already been made obsolete because Apple has further developed its OS in the meantime. Apple therefore states that the safety of its products is not at risk.