PS3 Finally Hacked?

For three years Sony’s Playstation 3 has remained uncompromised. Nintendo’s Wii fell victim to hackers as did Microsoft’s Xbox 360 almost right out of the gate, but Sony’s machine remained strong. That changed last night. The web is now buzzing with reports the PS3 has finally been hacked.

George Hotz, a well known iPhone hacker who goes by the name of geohot, claims he can get full read/write access to the entire system memory and complete control over the processor — all without a mod chip. You read right, without a modchip. Furthermore, Hotz says the issue “isn’t really patchable, but [Sony] can make implementations much harder.”

Here’s a look at hotz’s post:

Hello hypervisor, I’m geohot

I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I’ve also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.

3 years, 2 months, 11 days…thats a pretty secure system

Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.

Shout out to George Kharrat from iPhoneMod Brasil for giving me this PS3 a year and a half ago to hack. Sorry it took me so long

As far as the exploit goes, I’m not revealing it yet. The theory isn’t really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can’t post dumps. I’m hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone’s KBAG.

A lot more to come…

Is it true? That answer remains to be seen. We all know Sony is on the ball continuously releasing firmware updates. If is is true then a whole new game of cat and mouse is about to begin.

[On the Playstation 3]