Hacker group makes major progress in PS5 jailbreaking efforts
Infamous hacking group, fail0verflow, has apparently made a breakthrough in its efforts at jailbreaking the PS5.
"Another one bites the dust". So says the fail0verflow group, suggesting that they're incredibly close to jailbreaking the PS5.
After posting a screenshot that shows the PS5 root keys on the morning of November 9, fail0verflow sent another tweet confirming that the collective has managed to get all the symmetric PS5 root keys.
“Translation – we got all (symmetric) PS5 root keys. They can all be obtained from software – including per-console root key, if you look hard enough,” said fail0verflow on Twitter.
This means that, whilst not fully cracked, the PS5 is well on its way to jailbreak status – for the laymen, that means you'll be able to run code on the console that's not necessarily meant to be played on it, for example. Other tweets and replies in the thread suggest that Sony won't be easily able to fix this hack, and that rotating new keys into the system won't be that easy for the platform holder.
This isn't the first time fail0verflow have tinkered with Sony's consoles, either: way back in 2013, the group managed to crack the PS3 after another collective published the PS3's root key.
Given the hackers could use that to break the PS3 console, it stands to reason that they'll be able to do the same with the PS5 (although they'll have to bypass some slightly more sophisticated security measures this time).
To make matters worse, Andy Nguyen also shared images over the weekend suggesting that he managed to activate debug settings on a retail PS5 – not a developer kit, but the ones the public are sold. On the upside, for Sony, Nguyen has tweet that he won't be sharing the process for uncovering these settings.
The PS5 launched November 12, 2020 and has – to date – sold at least 10 million units.