Ever since Sony unexpectedly released FW 3.69, the latest PSVita firmware wasn’t hackable but TheFlow told us that he had something for that it (and FW 3.70) which he’d release this year. Now, the time has finally come and he’s released the Trinity exploit, an exploit that lets you hack FW 3.69 and 3.70 on the PSVita/PSTV!

The Trinity Exploit – What is it and how does it work?

With the Trinity exploit, you can hack FW 3.69 and FW 3.70, the latest PSVita/PSTV firmware. (Image by Freakler)

The Trinity Exploit, which as its name suggests is made up of three components, is an exploit chain allowing one to run native unsigned code on the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV. In other words, it lets you run your favourite homebrew, plugins and whatnot which means that FW 3.69/3.70 can now enjoy all the features that come with HENkaku/taiHEN!

In a nutshell, this is most of what you need to know about it:

• The exploit runs inside the PSVita’s ePSP emulator which means that you MUST have a PSP game/mini/demo installed on your device in order to use it!
  • It works by first gaining control of execution rights in the ePSP emulator through a MIPS kernel exploit. Then it escapes it through another security vulnerability and finally, it runs native ARM code through an ARM kernel exploit
• Trinity needs to be applied every time you perform a cold reboot as FW 3.67+ don’t support HENkaku Enso (see the last point for more info)
• 

  Yet again, device activation is a pretty important thing so make sure you activate your FW 3.69/3.70 PSVita/PSTV as Sony can decide to disallow FW 3.69/3.70 devices from activating whenever it feels like it

  It works on all PlayStation Vita models (Phat and Slim) and the PlayStation TV

  • You must have a PSVita memory card if you have a Phat model as it has no user-accessible internal storage
  • If your PSVita is region-locked Mainland China model (PCH-2009, it’s a specific Slim model), you may not be able to use it as there are no PSP games on Mainland China’s PlayStation Store
• Obviously, this exploit isn’t an ePSP hack which means that you can run native PSVita homebrew through it. If you want ePSP functionality, you’ll have to install TheFlow’s Adrenaline which has already been updated for FW 3.69/3.70
• Finally, it is important to note that some homebrew/plugins may not work out of the box as it might contain firmware-specific offsets not updated for these 2 firmwares
  • To get around this, you can either report the issue to the homebrew/plugin developer OR downgrade to FW 3.60/3.65 using Modoru which would also allow you to run HENkaku Enso thus getting an untethered hack that needn’t be applied every reboot

The main people behind it are TheFlow (main developer) and qwikrazor87 (the PSP kernel exploit). The icon was made by Freakler (article’s featured image also by him); other credits can be seen in the GitHub link below

How do I install it?

QCMA backup hacking is required for this one so make sure you sit yourself down!

Similar to h-encore, the Trinity exploit isn’t as straight forward as HENkaku to install and requires you to modify a QCMA backup. In a nutshell, the process is as follows:

• First of all, you must have a PSP game/mini or demo installed on your PSVita/PSTV (Check out this article for more information)
  • This means that Sony could potentially curb the usage of the Trinity exploit with the release of a newer firmware since one must be on the latest firmware to access PSN and activate their console.
• Install QCMA on your PC, connect your PSVita/PSTV to it and back the PSP game up through the PSVita’s Content Manager
• Decrypt the game’s backup, put the Trinity Exploit’s files inside and then re-pack/encrypt it
• Copy the game back to the PSVita and the bubble of the game you modified should now bear the name “Trinity”
• Turn on WiFi, reboot your device and run the Trinity bubble
• The exploit should launch a program called Construct from which you can download VitaShell and install HENkaku
• Your PSVita/PSTV is now hacked; Trinity needs to be applied every reboot unless you downgrade through modoru to FW 3.60/3.65 in order to install HENkaku Enso!

It is very important that you read the installation instructions once or twice before attempting to do the process since there’s quite a bit to do. Furthermore, it’s recommended you devote at least 30mins-1hour to installing Trinity to avoid any frustration from trying to do things too quickly.

Conclusion

TheFlow has stated numerous times that Trinity will be his last PSVita exploit so if you’re still on the fence when it comes to getting a PSVita/PSTV, make your decision quickly as using Trinity may become impossible to use on a newly-bough console if Sony releases a new firmware. In regards to the installation process, somebody will surely come up with a way to automate the process similar to auto-h-encore so if you’re not up to the task, you ought to wait for that.

On a concluding note, you can donate to TheFlow by following the Patreon link below and follow the instructions to install Trinity from the GitHub link.

Trinity Exploit Download Link + Instructions (read them once or twice!): https://github.com/TheOfficialFloW/Trinity/blob/master/README.md

TheFlow’s Patreon (to donate for his excellent work): https://www.patreon.com/TheOfficialFloW

TheFlow’s Twitter (future updates): https://twitter.com/theflow0