Pierluigi Paganini May 17, 2015

Russian hackers have developed a Sony PS4 crack which is used by Brazil retailers to break console security and sell pirated games to their customers.

A group of Russian crackers has discovered a method to hack the popular Sony PS4 and bypass its security measures. The group is offering it hack on the Brazilian market, where merchants are offering their consumers the opportunity crack their console and install 10 games for a cost ranging from $100 to $150 and $15 for each additional game.

“There’s a new game pirating hack in the world and it’s targeting the PlayStation 4. The hack originates from a Russian website and has been pushed into the public by Brasilian retailers. The hack isn’t necessarily a jailbreak for the PS4, nor is it a homebrew technique. It works like this:  A retail PS4, with several games installed on it, has it’s entire game database and operating system (including NAN/BIOS) dumped onto a hacked PS4 via Raspberry Pi. The entire process costs about $100 to $150 to install 10 games and $15 per additional game.” reported GameZone.

The reliability of the news has been verified by the Brazilian game website UOL Jogos who examined a version of the Sony PS4 crack used by merchants in Sao Paulo.

Sony is warning the Brazilian merchants not to provide the Sony PS4 crack to their customers.

“Not limited to this case, SCE [Sony Computer Entertainment] continually collaborates with organisations from US/Europe/Asia to take preventive actions against unauthorised/malicious copying of PlayStation software in individual regions.” said a Sony spokesperson.

An interesting aspect of the Sony PS4 crack circulating in Brazil is that apparently Sony would be unable to discover the users, which are playing pirated copies of the games.

The International Business Times reported the opinion of Gavin Reid, the vice president of threat intelligence at Lancope:

“Vendors in this space face aggressive targeting by communities wishing to remove copy protection. The PS4 will be no different and Sony will continue to play an arms race against groups that benefit from the abilities to copy and share games. This has happened historically with all of the major consoles. It would be highly unlikely not to continue with the PS4.”

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Sony PS4 crack, hacking)