PS3 ‘Hacked’ After 3 Years

Prolific iPhone hacker George Hotz (Geohot) claims to have hacked the PS3 to a low machine level by gaining access into the memory. This has been analysed by DigitalFoundrys Richard Leadbetter and he revealed some interesting facts that give us an insight into the inner workings of our favorite black box.

“While the hack gives access to the entire system memory, the all-important decryption keys are held entirely in the SPU and can’t be read by Hotz’s new Hypervisor calls.”

He also gave some idea of why some consoles are easier to hack than others.

“Xbox 360 was compromised owing to the unencrypted nature of the firmware on the original DVD drives. Wii was hacked because the system itself was so similar to the GameCube that when the old hardware was cracked, the new revision fell with it. PlayStation 3 is far smarter. Not only is the drive software itself encrypted, but it’s widely believed that the mandatory firmware updates can also reflash the Blu-ray drive too – even if the drive was hacked (it never has been) it would be re-secured next time you updated your PS3.”

All very interesting stuff and it does give me confidence in my PS3 and the fact that it is claimed to be the most secure games machine ever made.

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