Lockdown Mode Bypassed: iPhone 18 Pro Jailbreak Survives iOS 27.2

The hacker team Calif is back in the spotlight barely a week after it jailbroke an iPhone Duo on launch day. This time the group has jailbroken an iPhone with Lockdown Mode enabled, and the jailbreak appears to survive an iOS update.

In a video shared by Calif, an iPhone 18 Pro with Lockdown Mode switched on is jailbroken, after which iOS 27.2 is installed on the device. Once the update finishes, the video shows the jailbreak still in place. The team announced the demonstration in a short post with the message "Lockdown Mode helps, until it doesn't." The post came right after the group's iPhone Duo demonstration a few days earlier, making it the second time in a short span that the same team has surfaced with a similar claim.

What the video shows

According to the video, the process begins with a malicious PDF file sent to the target iPhone via AirDrop. The user has to accept the file, after which the jailbreak process is triggered. Calif shared no further detail on the exact steps involved, so the technical specifics remain unknown for now.

Another open question is whether the jailbreak can be installed directly on a device already running iOS 27.2. The video only shows the update being applied after the jailbreak and the jailbreak continuing to work afterward. It is therefore unclear whether the demonstration would work the same way on a fresh device running the current release.

What Lockdown Mode is meant to do

Apple describes Lockdown Mode as an extreme level of protection designed for people who might be targeted by sophisticated mercenary spyware. When it is turned on, a long list of features is disabled or restricted: most message attachment types are blocked, web technologies are limited, FaceTime calls from unknown contacts are blocked, invitations for Apple services are disabled, and location information is stripped from photos.

Despite these tight restrictions, Calif's demonstration shows that an iPhone can be jailbroken even with Lockdown Mode on. Still, the video shows that the target user has to accept the file arriving over AirDrop. That detail suggests the method shown requires user interaction.

Apple's earlier statement and Calif's stance

Earlier this year, Apple said it was not aware of any successful mercenary spyware attack against an iPhone with Lockdown Mode enabled. That statement concerned the specific category of threat the mode is built to counter.

Calif, for its part, has previously said it reported the vulnerabilities it found to Apple and does not plan to release a jailbreak tool for end users. The team has shared nothing further about the demonstration beyond what appears in the video, so its scope and limits will remain largely unclear until the group says more.