Over the weekend, hackers may have made significant progress in potentially jailbreaking the PlayStation 5, with the hacking organization Fail0verflow claiming to have obtained PS5 root keys, allowing them to decipher the console’s software.
Over the weekend, Andy Nguyen (a Google security engineer better known as theflow0) was also able to get access to the PS5’s debug settings menu on a retail PS5. Wololo.net was the first to notice both exploits.
Because of the extent of access they possibly allow to the PS5’s firmware, the two attacks are highly noteworthy. Decrypted firmware, which is achievable thanks to Fail0verflow’s keys, might allow hackers to further reverse engineer the PS5 software and design hacks similar to those that allowed previous Sony consoles to run Linux, emulators, and even unlicensed games.
Sony, therefore, is determined to prevent people from doing such things, and will undoubtedly do all possible to prevent such exploits from reaching a wider audience, in addition to working to patch the flaws.
For the time being, the two exploits won’t alter anything for PS5 owners – there’s no sudden PS5 jailbreak accessible today, and neither Nguyen nor Fail0verflow have revealed the details of their individual hacks — and it’s unclear whether they ever will.
Nguyen has previously said that he has “no intentions for publication” of his hack, while Wololo.net points out that Fail0verflow held off on revealing its PS4 hacks until Sony corrected items last console generation, implying that none of this will result in meaningful changes in the PS5 hacking scene.
