Problem med Jailbreakme.com

Sorry jailbreakers: Apple has made life harder for you once again with the release of iOS 4.3.4 (or iOS 4.2.9 for Verizon iPhone). Friday's update to iOS was released specifically to address a security vulnerability related to the viewing of malicious PDF files, which had been used to enable jailbreaks under the latest public version of iOS. 

The PDF vulnerability in question came to light last week—according to a blog post by security firm Intego, the vulnerability allowed for remote code execution, or "in other words, loading a malicious PDF file, either received by e-mail, or loaded from a web page, could lead to attackers executing code on an iOS device." This vulnerability made it possible for users to jailbreak their iOS devices without tethering to a computer, instead loading up a specially crafted webpage to execute the code.

The release notes for iOS 4.3.4 don't address any other issues—just the PDF exploit—so those who are married to their jailbroken devices will likely want to exercise caution when upgrading. The rest of us, however, will be able to rest easier knowing that our data is secure from this particular vulnerability. Now if only those upcoming over-the-air OS updates were available now—it's tough to update an iPhone from a coffee shop.