PS4: Hacker Qwertyoruiop claims victory on Firmware 5.00

Developer Qwertyoruiop has been the only source of hope on the PS4 scene for quite a while, although the hope has been fading away, after months without a PS4 Jailbreak release in sight.

Qwertyoruiop directly contributed years ago to the PS4 1.76 Jailbreak (to date the only publicly hackable PS4 firmware), but he also said 6 months ago that he had a fully weaponized exploit for firmware 4.55. Sadly, he never released that exploit, stating he would release it if he found a new usermode/kernel exploit combination.

Today, Qwertyoruiop says he has a new entry point into PS4’s latest firmware, firmware 5.00. This is in the context of recent progress showing that running pirated games and native homebrew is a definite possibility on the PS4, both through public (on firmware 1.76) and private (on firmware 4.55) exploits.

Although the screenshot above just showcases usermode access through (probably) a webkit vulnerability, it is believed that the hacker’s kernel exploit from 4.55 is still live in firmware 5.00. The developer himself stated he “already has a [kernel] bug, and just needs to exploit it”.

In other words, this is Qwertyoruiop stating once again that he has a full PS4 jailbreak on the latest firmware.

In addition, he claimed a few hours ago that he found yet another kernel bug on PS4 Firmware 5.00 (although he did not state if that one is exploitable or not).

It’s unclear if any of this changes his stance on releasing a PS4 Jailbreak at all. For all we know, Sony haven’t fixed the kernel vulnerability from 4.55, and the hacker might want to hold on it for as long as possible. Then again, the “new kernel bug” might convince him otherwise, assuming it is exploitable and he sticks to his word.

I’m taking a fairly pessimistic stance on this one and am assuming that we will not be seeing a release anytime soon from Qwertyoruiop, or anybody else for that matter. It seems multiple hackers have kernel exploits on the PS4, at least up to firmware 4.55, but none of them seem to be willing to release anything. Many of them have demonstrated they had access to kernel exploits, using multiple justifications to shy away from a release, from the claim that they are “easy to find“, that it’s collective work that is not an individual’s choice to release, or even white hat hackers who have disclosed their vulnerabilities to Sony.

Stay tuned.