PS3 firmware hacked again

The never-ending battle between Sony and hackers continues as the latest firmware is hacked allowing consoles running custom firmware to access the PSN (among other things).

Gamesindustry International points out that this level of trouble hasn’t been seen since a group attacked the PS3’s security measures in response to the removal of the ability to run another operating system under the ‘other OS’ option. That was a move from Sony that I still don’t quite get by the way. Why suddenly disallow users to run another operating system when you had no issue with it before? Made no sense to me then and still doesn’t.

But that was then and this is now. And as of this week, another group has released a hack that actually circumvents Sony’s security fixes from last time and even allows for future workarounds. See, the new release contains some very high level security protocols and a set of decryption keys. Basically that means that even if another fix is released (and it will be), the fact that the decryption keys are out there allow for that to be knocked over with relative ease.

It’s the kind of thing that probably won’t get the media attention that something as splashy as the PSN hack got, but it’s a potentially much bigger threat for Sony than that was as it almost definitely has much longer lasting repercussions.

Source: Gamesindustry International