iOS 10 jailbreak release date, updates: Zerodium putting forward $1.5m reward for working jailbreak

The new iPhone 7 smartphone is displayed inside an Apple Inc. store in Los Angeles, California, U.S., September 16, 2016.Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

A massive reward awaits a hacker who successfully whips up a working iOS 10 jailbreak with cyber security company Zerodium back at it again with its zero-day exploits.

The company is offering $1.5 million, which is $500,000 more than the prize from last year, to anyone who manages to remotely jailbreak an iOS 10-running iPhone.

Zerodium founder Chaouki Bekrar told Wired that the increase in reward was called for by the better security implemented on the iOS 10. "We would like to attract more researchers all year long," he explained.

Apple has been doubling down on its fight against jailbreaking, which makes sense while their landmark iOS is also the most difficult to crack.

Despite this, the iOS 10 has proven to be vulnerable as Italian developer Luca Todesco has already proven it is possible to jailbreak the newly rolled out mobile operating system for Apple.

Wired points out that it is a whole new ball game jailbreaking the iOS 10 remotely, which also explains why Zerodium offers the biggest award to the individual who pulls off such challenging feat.

In addition to that, the exploit broker, whose customers are mostly governments and corporations in North America, increased the bounty because Apple is also looking to reward anyone who can help them find the vulnerabilities of its software releases.

Apple announced in August a bug bounty program that awards $200,000 to anyone that finds faults in its firmware.

As for the public iOS 10 jailbreak being made by jailbreak development team Pangu, there are no updates yet with regards to the progress or the release date.

It is extra difficult for them to build one as the Cupertino-based company has been quick in rolling out new versions of the iOS 10 that always come with tweaks that disable any jailbreak installed on an iOS device.

Jailbreak fans are starting to think that the iOS 10 jailbreak from Pangu may not see the light of day at all.