Is Jailbreaking Safe?

Jump to…

• What is Jailbreaking
• How Does Jailbreak Work?
• Jailbreaking iPhone vs. Rooting iPhone
• Does Jailbreak Jeopardize Device Safety?
• Here’s why we don’t recommend jailbreaking your iPhone

What is Jailbreaking?

The term jailbreaking refers to the system-level modification of a device to evade the restrictions or barriers created by the device manufacturer. The term is commonly used for smartphones, however, it is applicable to other devices like gaming consoles such as PlayStation and other electronic devices with restricted features. A jailbroken iphones can easily bypass the manufacturer limiters and access restricted features or even install unauthorized software that can not be downloaded from the app store. The jailbreaking process works as an exploit that boosts your device privileges by replacing a built-in operating system with mods at the expense of security features and battery life along with security vulnerabilities and stability issues. Jailbreaking is not confined but certainly infamous among the iOS users.

How Does Jailbreak Work?

Apple loves restricting its users’ privileges. They usually dictate user experience and tell you how a device should be used – a device that you just purchased. Let’s explore a few of these restrictions, Apple iPhone’s memory cannot be upgraded, Apple iPods need to sync with Apple iTunes to play music, Apple Mac parts cannot be swapped and most of the decent apps on AppStore are paid. Of course, there are Apple phone users that don’t appreciate restraint and hence opt for the jailbroken phone since it allows them to bypass restrictions and overclock their Apple iPhone, Apple iPad, and any other Apple Device.

Is Jailbreaking Legal?

With Jailbreaking your iPhone the mods or custom kernel replace your built-in operating system and enables you to overclock your jailbroken iPhone, access restricted features, install apps from the app store for free and access unauthorized content without worrying about Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Further, iPhone jailbreak allows you to customize the user interface which is not possible with stock iPhone OS. Jailbreaking your iPhone sounds fascinating, but, the question is whether you should do jailbreaking? With jailbroken iPhones, you get extra privileges but at the cost of your device’s security. Is jailbreaking safe ? No! Jailbroken phone are vulnerable in terms of security and more susceptible to hacking, unauthorized access and information theft like an email address, etc. Still, 1 out of 3 iOS phone you come across might be jailbroken iPhone and running Cydia.

Jailbreaking iPhone vs. Rooting iPhone

Jailbreaking:

The terms jailbreak iPhone and root iPhone can be used interchangeably, nevertheless, jailbreaking phone is mainly associated with iOS devices. On the other hand, rooting is commonly associated with Android devices. Jailbreaking phone or rooting is a process that identifies vulnerabilities in the stock operating system and replaces it with mods – giving users access to restricted features which is not possible to access from the app store. A point worth noting here is that jailbreaking phone is not to be attempted by newbies as the process does not guarantee 100% success. While Jailbreak your iPhone there is always a risk of bricking the phone if executed incorrectly. Further, there are times when you need to jailbreak your iPhone time and again on every reboot.

Rooting Phone:

Rooting phone, on the other hand, is less complicated as compared to jailbreak the phone. This is because of the openness of the operating system. Android as an operating system is more liberated as compared to iOS. Though Android manufacturers do no appreciate or encourage rooting, executing the process on an Android device is much less troublesome as compared to iOS. It is safe to say that rooting an Android device is a little permissible compared to jailbreaking iOS. If things go south, reverting a rooted device to the stock OS can be considered a last resort. Nevertheless, unwanted glitches in jailbreak can leave you with a faulty or bricked device that is impossible to restore.

Does Jailbreak Jeopardize Device Safety?

Before you jump on the wagon of how jailbreaking can negatively affect the safety of your device, it is impeccable to understand what impact it has on your device safety.

No warranty coverage by Apple:

Jailbreaking a device nullifies its warranty. Your warranty claim flies off the window if something bad happens to your device. Even though you have pulled off a successful jailbreak, you now have a device with unlimited access. And it is human nature to explore how deep the rabbit hole goes – we will always choose the red pill. There are good apps and bad apps; apps that crash and also malware. There is a reason those restrictions are there in the first place. Jailbroken device lets you install APIs even from unauthorized and often unsecure pages – leaving your device security vulnerable.

Stability and Mobile Crashing:

Jailbroken devices are more susceptible to the phone crashing. Also, some apps might not work as intended or used to. Official updates are a disaster for jailbroken phones. An official update, if it does not brick your phone, would either make your phone glitch, break your phone or make some features inaccessible. Further, the updates might also accompany malware. The only solution to this is the updated version of jailbreak and it often takes weeks, even months to be available.

Malware:

No matter how cool a customized iOS device sounds to you, we recommend not to attempt a jailbreak. When you attempt a jailbreak, your days as a carefree user are over. Your warranty is nullified. Not Apple, you get to decide whether an app is safe or not, you are no longer their concern. Jailbreaks often accompany security threats as the jailbreak might have a backdoor built-in. The moment you root your iOS device with the firmware, you might accidentally give access to all your data and information stored on the phone.

Data Breaches:

One of the notorious jailbreak hacking incidents happened in 2015 when some hackers gained access to iCloud login information of 225,000 individuals that attempted jailbreak. The hack was facilitated by backdoors created in jailbreak tweaks which helped hackers infiltrate users’ devices.