Wii U: where is the IOSU 5.5 exploit?

Last month, famous hacker Hykem announced he would be releasing an exploit for the latest Wii U firmware 5.5. The release later got delayed and was supposed to happen last week. Nothing’s been released yet, so what happened exactly?

Basically, the release got delayed because another group of hackers (Smealum and plutoo of 3DS fame, and naehrwert who was heavily involved in the PS3 scene) published proof that they also had a Wii U exploit (note: this is proof to people who would also happen to have access to an exploit and can confirm the first hex values of the key showcased. This was apparently proof enough for Hykem.).

This initially caused Hykem to pause his work as he believed he would not need to release his work after all, and that smealum/plutoo/naehrwert would now drive the Wii U Homebrew scene.

Sigh…
It’s legit and probably works up to 5.5.0. Could be using the same bug I found, could be using another one. Guess my work is moot now. Congratulations @plutoo, @smealum and @naehrwert.
Should be matter of time until the keys are out and the exploit afterwards.
I’m moving on then. See ya.

Hykem described this as a relief has he did not want to have to do that.

Who said I’m ***? This is actually a relief. Having them taking over the Wii U scene saved me from a lot of headaches.
I’m a bit annoyed at myself for tooking longer than I desired, but I always shared what I had.
It was a race to get there and I lost, that’s all.

It turned out naehrwert/plutoo have no intention to release their exploit, and are using a different exploit from his.

<zecoxao> will you and plutoo actually release something?
<naehrwert> nope
<naehrwert> why should we?

Hykem’s now resumed his work and still intends to release the IOSU exploit.

Jesus Christ…
You all took my wording out of context and turned this thread into a shitfest… again…
I already clarified things with naerhwert,
their work is not for release and uses a totally different exploit path then mine. This means they will be able to stockpile their exploit while I release mine. Problem solved.

I apologize if my wording was poor and it sounded like resentment or whatever. That was not what I meant.
I was simply stating that I would be moving on because they got there before me and have the means and time to build a great homebrew scene themselves (3DS was good example). Never I mentioned giving up or not releasing anything.

The current expected timeframe for the release of Hykem’s Wii U 5.5 exploit is “before February” (in other words, January).

So, I’ve got good news and bad news.
The bad news is that I’m going to postpone the release again. I said this week would be a more realistic release date, but I never confirmed it would happen then. Still, it’s not a huge delay and it’s definitely not to wait for a new firmware update.
Like I stated before, I have the entire month of January free just to work on this and the exploit will be released and maintained before February (yes, I’m sure of that).
Now the good news, which should explain the additional delay. I need some time to pursue something I found in the MCP module. If I’m correct about this, we should be able to get a boot-time exploit. The reason for that is that the MCP module is responsible for launching “master” titles (like the PPC kernel, for example) and I found a bug that, if it turns out to be exploitable, should allow to hijack execution while MCP is still preparing to launch stuff. This means, early IOSU access and a direct boot into an exploitable environment. Not to mention that MCP is the IOSU user module with most privileges (next to BSP that is) and having access to it alone is more than enough to own the IOSU kernel at any given time.
I believe it’s important to look into this because if it works, no one will have to worry about possibly bricking consoles by installing custom titles (homebrew channel, for example) and then attempting to launch them before triggering the exploit again after a fresh boot.

With that said, if this turns out to be nothing, I’ll release the exploit right away.

Compiled with love by yours truly from stuff splattered all over the place in the gigantic Wii U hacking thread at GBATemp.