Unpatchable Security Hole in PlayStation 3 Leading The "final hack" Also LV0 Cryptographic Keys Revealed
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We all are very much aware that Sony along with its product's were always been a very hot favorite target of hackers. But here there are few twists, so the word 'Hack' will be be the appropriate one to describe of what happened to Sony. According to a report on Eurogamer Sony's PlayStation 3 is facing a new security threat - one it hasn't seen since the system was cracked via the PSJailbreak in 2011. The PS3 has been hacked before, but Sony was able to inhibit the hack with an update to its own firmware. This is much like the history of jailbreaking on Apple's iOS. But the latest PS3 break is being dubbed unpatchable and the final hack. That's because this hack isn't giving you an exploit to use against a programming hole. It's giving you Sony's so-called LV0 (level zero) cryptographic keys.
A decryption key that is reported to be circulating on the net is said to remove the final protective barrier on some models of Sony's PlayStation 3 consoles. In the long run, the release of the key will probably allow unsigned software such as homebrew games, Linux distributions, or pirate copies of software to run on some PS3 consoles. Allegedly, the private key can be used to modify and sign the "LV0" (Level 0), for example to disable its security checks. When the PS3 system boots, from version 3.60 of the PS3's firmware, the LV0 is directly launched by the bootloader (bootldr) that is built into the system's hardware – which means that the chain of trust is broken at a very early stage. As Sony won't be able to update the bootloader with a software update, the hacker community considers this the "final hack" of the PS3 in its current forms. Eurogamer says that these keys may not have been released at all if not for a Chinese hacking outfit called "BlueDiskCFW," who gained access to the keys and planned to charge for new custom firmware updates it would create. The original group that created the LV0 had no plans on releasing them, but eventually they were leaked onto the Internet in some limited fashion. Seeing that someone was going to profit on them, the group known as "The Three Tuskateers" decided to release them into the wilds of the Internet.
In a statement the hacker group says that "You can be sure that if it wouldn't have been for this leak, this key would never have seen the light of day, only the fear of our work being used by others to make money out of it has forced us to release this now,"