Hacking the PS Vita

https://yifan.lu/2015/06/21/hacking-the-ps-vita/

by voltagex_ • 11 years ago

86 35 11 years ago

yifanlu7• 11 years ago

Hello, didn't expect to see this here. I'll be happy to answer any question as I refrained from giving deep technical details in the article. I'm surprised at how secure the Vita is given Sony's track record. I would say that the Vita is the most secure consumer embedded device that's out today.

kawsper• 11 years ago

Are we some day going to see the same activity in Homebrew on the Vita as we saw it on the PSP?

joshuapants5• 11 years ago

In a sense we already literally do: the only working exploits (that I know of, it's been a while since I checked) involve the PSP emulator on the system. So you have the same activity insofar as you can run the exact same homebrew :P

yifanlu7• 11 years ago

I hope so. But the cynic in me thinks think there won't be as much work because now most people who would work on homebrew games and emulators are now coding for smartphones and tablets. However, by getting an open sdk started and releasing a public exploit for developers (honestly it's not user friendly enough for everyone), I'm hoping the scene will finally get a jump start.

joshuapants5• 11 years ago

First off that was a fascinating read. Thanks.

I would say that the Vita is the most secure consumer embedded device that's out today

It's really disappointing in some ways. The PSP made for a great portable media/emulation platform and the additional power of the Vita would have been welcome for those purposes. But it's buttoned up incredibly tight, so mine just sits as a paperweight because there are very few Vita games that interest me.

madez3• 11 years ago

Does Sony reach out to developers in the scene to employ them to make their next console harder to hack?

yifanlu7• 11 years ago

No, typically Sony is hostile towards hackers. Being ignored is the best response from them. I think after the bad press for PS3 and psn hacks, Sony hired security consultants to secure the Vita. They did so many things right that frankly it's suprising. Not everything rolled over into the ps4 though so the vita is more secure than the ps4.

mukyu• 11 years ago

They famously sued geohot (and others) for their work on the PS3. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Am...

mrpippy• 11 years ago

I would say that the Vita is the most secure consumer embedded device that's out today

Moreso than the PS4 and XBONE?

sspiff2• 11 years ago

Or the 3DS.

It's funny, when it's our personal data or credit card numbers, they can't seem to manage the most basic of security procedures. Yet when it's DRM and they want to prevent unauthorized third party code from running (because they can't take their 60% cut), suddenly they're masters at sandboxing.

yifanlu7• 11 years ago

Well I don't consider them embedded, but I would say yes for the PS4. I haven't looked at the xbone yet so I can't say anything for that. PS4 uses FreeBSD9 as its kernel. Plus there is no KASLR. In theory, if you find an exploit in freebsd, you can exploit the ps4. Some people already got some kernel memory leaks to work. Meanwhile, the vita uses a custom os built from the PSP but is vaguely similar to it (I wouldn't be surprise if it was a complete rewrite).

gambiting3• 11 years ago

The only thing standing between anyone executing their code on PS4 or Xbox One is a valid signing certificate. If you had it, or if you could trick the system into thinking it doesn't need one, you could just burn your data to a BD disc, or try running it from a USB stick. On the Vita you don't even have an attack vector. It uses propriatery cards for both games and extra storage,with no commercial readers/writers available. I have a Vita Devkit at work and the only way Sony provides for devs to write/read from these cards is through the devkit itself,it has an extra Mini-USB port to connect to PC through special connection. It's super secure from what it looks like.

beefhash2• 11 years ago

How does the Vita compare to the 3DS with regards to security and -- from a developer's point of view -- overall system architecture?

yifanlu7• 11 years ago

How detailed do you want me to get? I've hacked both of them so I can give you as much info as you want. From a broad perspective, Vita has KASLR/ASLR, stack canaries, trustzone, just to name a few standard things that 3ds doesn't have. Overall the 3ds is pretty much "hacked" (only a couple of components are still secured including bootrom and aes engine). Vita is not even hacked at a kernel level yet.

Sektor• 11 years ago

I didn't expect to see this OR you here! I read gbatemp/wololo/hn about every hour most days and it's weird to see both worlds come together (in some small way). Congrats on all your work to date and look forward to seeing more from you in this space!

TD-Linux• 11 years ago

I've noticed a dramatic rolloff in homebrew scene activity since the rise of smartphones and the like, at least in portables. Part of this is due to the (more) open nature and ubiquity of smartphones, but also due to proprietary consoles getting more and more boring.

The Nintendo DS homebrew community was very active, with a well-supported toolchain. The NDS was a neat piece of hardware - the graphics system was inherited from the GBA, which bears many similarities back to the original Gameboy and the NES. It's probably the last console produced with the concept of tilemaps and sprites. You also got a fast CPU, two screens, and a touchscreen, three years before the iPhone.

Now, today, portable game consoles are basically underpowered smartphones. Perhaps the 3DS is a bit unique due to its screen, but better consumer hardware exists even for that. It's even worse for desktop consoles, which are an AMD APU with no particular merits whatsoever.

joshuapants5• 11 years ago

Now, today, portable game consoles are basically underpowered smartphones.

With the notable addition of good physical controls

beefhash2• 11 years ago

One might argue that good physical controls just don't matter that much for the audience that casually plays a game on the train.

madez3• 11 years ago

Having good physical controls is not so hard to get on smartphones [1]. If smartphone manufactures wanted to make their device better for gaming, they'd just need clips for common controllers and make the wired and wireless connection work.

http://buy.thegameklip.com/products/gameklip-casemount

voltagex_2• 11 years ago

Whelp.

https://en-support.psm.playstation.net/app/answers/detail/a_...

daurnimator• 11 years ago

Great to see follow-ups like this.

I was involved in the old PSP homebrew scene; good to see people keeping it alive for more than just playing ripped games.

tux• 11 years ago

Site down, here is cache: https://archive.is/TTR4f

Hacking the PS Vita

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