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iPad Jailbreaking a company-issued iPad

R

RogerRamjet

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 23, 2010
4
0
I'm about to receive a company-issued iPad, for work purposes (obviously) and personal use. The company does not want employees to jailbreak the devices. They plan to remotely erase all personal content if/when they find out the device is jailbroken.
- How can they find out whether the device is jailbroken?
- How can they remotely delete content if I disable "find my iPad"
- Is there a Cydia tweak to work around all this?
It may sound frivolous or silly, but can't operate without SB settings and MyWi...
Any help/advice would be appreciated
 
Are you serious?

The iPad is a device that can easily be managed by enterprises and it all has nothing to do with "find my iPad." If they are "managing" it, then it won't be hard for them to catch.

Just buy one yourself if you want to jailbreak and don't risk your job.
 
Sounds like they're covering their ass. If you install something that has some sort of security hole, their business is then compromised.

Even though the chance is small, the chance is there, and that's smart IT for your company to restrict it.
 
Yeah, I would definitely not JB a company device. You'll manage without the tweaks. Remember, this is their iPad, not yours. Don't risk your job and your conpany's security.
 
Actually, I find that an interesting question from a technical point of view. Can a company (or any basic administrator) remotely detect the fact that one of its iPads is jailbroken? and if so, how? when connected to the internet? when connected to its own network? and how?
 
Bada-Bing said:
Actually, I find that an interesting question from a technical point of view. Can a company (or any basic administrator) remotely detect the fact that one of its iPads is jailbroken? and if so, how? when connected to the internet? when connected to its own network? and how?
Click to expand...

It's pretty easy by deploying a separate app directly on it (from Xcode or using a company certificate as opposed to an AppStore one) accessing, say, the root of the file system (or anything outside the home directory of the app). If the access succeeds, the app can report it to the center. It also reports to the center if the device isn't jailbroken.

The users, then, need to run the app manually, say, every day - this is why reporting in a non-JB case is also reported and stored on the server.
 
Thank you all for your replies. I'll stick with my own jailbroken iPad for personal use and won't fiddle with the new one...
 
Bada-Bing said:
Actually, I find that an interesting question from a technical point of view. Can a company (or any basic administrator) remotely detect the fact that one of its iPads is jailbroken? And if so, how? When connected to the Internet? When connected to its own network? And how?
Click to expand...
I personally have a feeling that iOS itself probably has some built-in API to determine whether the device is jailbroken. It's probably not that difficult to do for Apple from their standpoint: save a hash or checksum of any given iOS version in its original state; obviously, that value will not match if a device has been jailbroken.

I've heard of a few apps that refuse to run on jailbroken devices; my cable company's app is one of them. I seriously doubt that whoever wrote that app actually used their own techniques to determine whether the device has been jailbroken. They probably adjusted their code based on what that API gives back to them.

If any iOS developers are reading this, perhaps they can comment on whether I am right on this one.

Now, going back to the original post, I agree with what many others have said; jailbreaking company's iPad is not worth risking your job. It's their iPad and therefore their business as to how they wish to lock it up and what's allowed on it and what is not.
 
It's there property and there device and they are the employer so they call the shots. Any tech savvy person should be able to figure out if they tampered with there device. if they find out it's what to them to decide what to do from there a Warning or fire you. My recommendation buy your own Ipad.
 
Pirate515 said:
I personally have a feeling that iOS itself probably has some built-in API to determine whether the device is jailbroken. It's probably not that difficult to do for Apple from their standpoint: save a hash or checksum of any given iOS version in its original state; obviously, that value will not match if a device has been jailbroken.

I've heard of a few apps that refuse to run on jailbroken devices; my cable company's app is one of them. I seriously doubt that whoever wrote that app actually used their own techniques to determine whether the device has been jailbroken. They probably adjusted their code based on what that API gives back to them.

If any iOS developers are reading this, perhaps they can comment on whether I am right on this one.

Now, going back to the original post, I agree with what many others have said; jailbreaking company's iPad is not worth risking your job. It's their iPad and therefore their business as to how they wish to lock it up and what's allowed on it and what is not.
Click to expand...

Actually, according to the IT article inserted above, Apple removed the API that used to be in iOS that would detect jailbroken devices. This article also points out some more of the complications of remote wiping and suggests that JB detection is actually more involved than the impression that I was getting from reading the posts above.
 
If the company uses any sort of Mobile Device Management software with the iPad it is VERY detectable. Actually it as easy as doing a search for 'Cydia' as installed apps on the iPads. I have used several different MDM solutions and most had this feature.
 
RogerRamjet said:
I'm about to receive a company-issued iPad, for work purposes (obviously) and personal use. The company does not want employees to jailbreak the devices. They plan to remotely erase all personal content if/when they find out the device is jailbroken.
- How can they find out whether the device is jailbroken?
- How can they remotely delete content if I disable "find my iPad"
- Is there a Cydia tweak to work around all this?
It may sound frivolous or silly, but can't operate without SB settings and MyWi...
Any help/advice would be appreciated
Click to expand...

Ask your IT department. You must have a pretty great paying job to receive a toy like this for work. Why don't you buy your own and mess with that one?
 
jailbreak disables mdm push

Definitely wouldn't JB the company iPad, but that said, I've heard that there are jailbreaks out there that disable the remote push notification and am wondering if this would impact MDM ability to remote wipe a device. The MDM API is activated via a Push notification to effectively call back and receive a command.

If that were the case, said company, would not be able to wipe the device even if detected. An thoughts or comments on this?
 
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