Sony Investigating PS3 Hack Reports
Recently, a hacker claimed he has hacked the PlayStation 3. George Hotz says he pulled it off after five weeks of work with “very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.” Sony is now investigating the PS3 hack allegations.
Sony has told IncGamers that they are checking the reports out about the PS3 hacks.
We are investigating the report and will clarify the situation once we have more information,” said the statement.
George Hotz, the iPhone 2G hacker, claims to have recently gained access to the PS3’s system memory, which could lead to homebrew being introduced to Sony’s system and much worse, piracy.
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 … that’s a pretty secure system.
Expect a PS3 firmware update soon if Sony confirms this, as they won’t want the same outcome which happened to the PSP. Stick with PSLS for all the latest PS3 hardware news as it comes in.
19 Responses to “Sony Investigating PS3 Hack Reports”
I don’t think there is too much for Sony to worry about. It’s just not worth it to buy BR disc and a BR burner….and if you get a few bad burns you would be better off just buying the original game.
Also any HDD loading can be overcome with a firmware update.
I think the full post the hacker made also mentioned that a OS update (firmware update) wouldn’t be able to prevent this being done. Not sure if a FW update will solve it…
What is so bad about homebrews being introduced onto the PS3, as the article implies? I agree, piracy for the PS3 would be bad, but homebrew will only drive more sales.
After months of trying to use my PS3 as a media center I gave up for its lack of flexibility and readable formats (not to mention the absence of ANY aesthetics or even an attempt to create a visually appealing playlist/file loader etc). Now I’m running XBMC on my netbook with an external hard drive attached.
If homebrews become possible on PS3 then XMBC will be the first thing installed on my PS3, and I’d bet many others would feel the same way. This could only be good for Sony and sales, I hardly believe that a burned/pirated game on Blu-Ray disc will become the norm.
Go geohotz!
If you read the article closely you have to see that it requires a piece of HARDWARE and SOFTWARE that was complex enough that the average 12 year old computer student might not be able to accomplish it.
Yeah I don’t think a FW update could fix a back door entry left by IBM/SONY to get at the processor during early development so as to restart the system a lock-up. But I am not a programmer and not even at that level but that is my opinion. Sony will find a way to make sure that either part of a hack will not work for long…
As far as HomeBrews it takes away revenue from Sony to keep doing the work it does to make hardware… R&D is expensive and if they can not make back that money then they quit making consoles for game play, this is the same for all console makers. Now if those wanting HomeBrew would work with Sony and produce PSN quality applications then it would work for both of them.
That is a pretty big accomplishment for a hacker I would say, But I think it would be easier to buy the stuff you want and let sony do the ps3 work.
i hope they arrest that bastard. Most games are only for console because of pc hackers (which are probably about 90% the other 10 may be xbox360 i have heard people saying it was hackable. i think that is because it’s the same company (as the windows))
I don’t know why sony worry so much. Its only a fraction of the people who mod anyways, and i know i know that if it were my system i wouldn’t want people hacking my system either. But they make so much money off of PSN that it more than makes up for the hacking. Plus the ps3 had already been modded to play burned games. All you have to do is a simple eject switch mod, and viola!
maybe they should team up with apple i think noone has craked a apple computer but i know he craked the iphone
Wow! It’s been done! I’m definitely impressed. I didn’t think we’d see the day. I personally love my cfw psp, custom aps, games and emulators- not to mention themes and sprites. I don’t use it for piracy, but that is obviously the #1 issue here, and most likely area of exploitation.
Sucks there’s no middle ground.
[...] Via Playstationlifestyle [...]
How could anyone be “impressed” with what this piece of s*** has done? The reason that gaming on the PC is going down the crapper is that there’s no point in putting money into developing a game when most people will just get a pirated copy. Entire countries worth of business are lost. We still pay for our games, but because millions of other people don’t, all that money is taken away from the development budgets of future games. We get no benefit, yet we sure as hell pay the price.
What’s the most popular game right now? Modern Warfare 2. Yet the PC version currently has a rating of 1.9 / 5 on Amazon. Why? Well, why should Activision put any work into giving them a good version of the game when everybody will just get a pirated copy?
@skypeonps3 – you can’t be arrested for this… at least the part he posted about. Fiddling with a piece of technology you own is your own right. However, if he starts marketing his services to mod things and allow others to pirate software, or he starts pirating software, then it becomes illegal. If this wasn’t the case, he’d be a real idiot to post that he had done this. On that note, I still wonder why he would boast about this, unless for some odd reason he did all this and has no real intention of pirating anything? which just seems wierd…
hello …
this is bad, really bad!
i think if SONY would release a forced firmware that can somehow scan & compare a system (hardware & software … wise) & block anything not proprietary to the said system, can easily block it.
we must not be fool to say that this would help using homebrew, boosting the PS3 & not for piracy.
it will always be used for theft, so i hope SONY finds a radical solution ASAP & can find a way to sue such violations.
MODding a PS3 now, would mean it’s death, for it still has a long road before becoming the main HD console of the people, when major developers would be scared then the software lineup will certainly suffer.
If i was in game development, i would discard any console/platform that has opened windows (yeah, i’m sure you get it!) allowing hackers to break in.
I hope this will be EPIC failure & SONY will give some kind of new services that will help some of us with our issues & needs for the console.
cheers!
@BigWoopMagazine he is an idiot he made the post on his blog and left the ip on it and also he said that he is going to upload this to the internet so other hackers would be responsible for pirated games.
@BigWoopMagazine and also he posted illegal programs to the iphone (hack) so they have a reason to arrest him.
I believe this hack to be pointless, as with modded xboxes as soon as you connect to live that xbox becomes banned (not just the account but the console itself) so making any online impossible the same would happen to a modded ps3. So that would mean no online play, no updates or patches. I personally would never mod my ps3 or buy one premodded.
billy-
mods and cfw can work with/around current PS3 updates and patches so that normal function can still be active. It usually allows other actions to be added to the OS, like running emulators, different programs- that kind of thing.
Yes it can be used for piracy, but it really comes down to how each user uses it.
hello …
if you are a PS3 fan, you can’t accept this!
cheers!
[...] short of a daytime drama for Sony, after the PlayStation 3′s security suffered a massive security breach, it was thought that the company’s run in this generation’s console race was all but [...]