Hackers have had access to an unreleased iOS 14 version for months

An early version of Apple’s upcoming iOS 14 has reportedly been around for months now since February. iOS 14 has been leaking in parts but this one is a pre-release version and security researchers, hackers and bloggers have had access to it, according to a report by Motherboard.

The report says that this iOS 14 leak is the entire version of Apple’s new operating system which will release later around September. It’s quite surprising that the full build of an unreleased iOS version is out and that too almost eight months before it’s release. Apple hasn’t even released the public beta of iOS 14.

This iOS 14 version leaked when someone got their hands on an iPhone 11 running an iOS 14 version dated December 2019. This was supposed to be used only by Apple developers but it got out. There’s more to the story. It was later sold by vendors in China for thousands of dollars and the internal build of iOS 14 was extracted and distributed to the iPhone jailbreaking and hacking community.

Hackers have been distributing this iOS leak to security researchers. 9to5Mac also has a copy of the leak through which it has been revealing some features of iOS 14.

The final iOS 14 will have some differences from this early version when it launches. But it’s noteworthy that for the first time an unreleased iOS version has been leaked and is continuing to spread among more people.