A hacker group known as Fail0verflow has managed to infiltrate the system software in the past, but none of the hacks have allowed the players to install packages, until now. Installing custom packages is considered a top-tier jailbreak. The Fail0verflow decryption hack was done back during PS5’s launch in 2020. Recently, a notorious hacker known as Lance McDonald shared his newly jailbroken PS5 console on his Twitter, showing off some of the new PS5 settings, including developer options and tools. These options are never available without a jailbreak.
The PlayStation 5 has been jailbroken. pic.twitter.com/54fvBGoQGw — Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) October 3, 2022 The highlight of the showcase video was the ability to install new packages. The packages are essentially game setup files. This was seen at the end of the video, where Lance installs the demo version of Silent Hills P.T. The game has been officially delisted from the PlayStation store, and there was no way for anyone to play the demo again, except, of course, now. It is unclear whether the game can run after installation or not, but even the installation of the package is a huge step in the world of PlayStation jailbreaking. It will allow players with a jailbroken device to install and play games that are not officially licensed for the PS5. Some of you might be new to the term jailbreak or jailbreaking in general. Jailbreaking essentially means gaining full control or access to your console. Having a jailbroken console allows you to download paid games for free and emulate previous PlayStation games (PS1, PS2, PS3, & PS4). Similar to PS3 and PS4 jailbreaks, a jailbroken PS5 console will allow you to install themes, emulators, custom patches, and unlicensed games. For example, the players of Bloodborne kept asking Sony to release a 60 FPS patch for the game. However, upon no response from the developers, Lance McDonald created a 60 FPS patch with a simple change in a game’s line of code. Jailbroken devices might allow you to download paid games for free, but it is only useful for single-player or offline games. You cannot play multiplayer games or access party chat when jailbroken. It also voids your console warranty, just like it does when you jailbreak your iPhone or root your Android. Unfortunately, we do not have any details about the specifics of this jailbreak. Whether it was hardware-related or software, that remains to be known. But Lance has shared the link where the jailbreak can be downloaded with additional information. According to the notes on the download page, the jailbreak uses a Webkit vulnerability as an entry point. In any case, the exploit is still very unstable and doesn’t even support Homebrew, which I am sure will be here soon, given the exploit stays unpatched. The hacker probably kept this to himself to avoid Sony patching it soon. Regardless, it will get patched eventually given the constant security patches we get on the PS5 console. It’ll be interesting to see how the exploit is used and how far it gets. The stability notes of the jailbreak exploit state that despite its limitations, it is powerful as it allows hackers to dig deep into the system, which may help discover a lot of new exploits.
