Sony launched PlayStation Classic to bring back the nostalgia but was heavily criticized for not including popular titles such as Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider.
Now, hackers have taken the things into their own hands, and, surprisingly, it is extremely easy to hack the plug-and-play console. Moreover, it is found that Sony has lacked in implementing the basic security features in the console, leading to easy hacking of the device.
Famous gaming console hackers yifanlu and madmonkey1907 were successful in loading the PlayStation Classic’s code via the system’s UART serial port. YifanLu took to Twitter and demonstrated through a series of Twitch-streamed sessions of the hacking procedure.
He revealed that Sony has signed and encrypted the most sensitive parts of the system using just one key which is embedded on the console itself.
It was also found that Sony PlayStation does not perform any signature check for the sensitive bootroom code when the console starts. By exploiting the lack of security mechanisms, Yifanlu loaded Crash Bandicoot prototype on the PlayStation Classic console.
Following the news that Sony’s recently launched console can be easily hacked, many enthusiasts have already developed a host of open source projects that allow PlayStation Classic owners to run games that are not bundled with the console and even load non-PlayStation software.
However, some users also faced the bricking of the console while attempting to load a USB thumb drive with a formatted payload. Therefore, we advise users to do so at their own risk.
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