Freeman, who goes by the hacker handle “Saurik” and created the widely-used app store for jailbroken iOS devices known as Cydia, told me in a phone interview that he discovered yesterday that Glass runs Android 4.0.4, and immediately began testing previously-known exploits that worked on that version of Google’s mobile operating system. Within hours, he found that he could use an exploit released by a hacker who goes by the name B1nary last year to gain full control of Glass’s operating system.
As David Mortman said in our internal chat room:
Love that it’s a slightly modified year old exploit. Google couldn’t even bother to release an up to date version of android with the device.
Here is why it matters – Glass will be open to most, if not all Android exploits unless Google takes extra precautions. Glass is always on, with a persistent video camera that isn’t blacked out when you drop it in your pocket. This offers malware opportunities beyond even the risks of a phone. Since every jailbreak is a security exploit, this is a problem.