Xbox360 Firmware Hack

News has surfaced that a flaw in the Xbox360 DVD firmware could possibly allow a hacker to install their own custom firmware. Thus allowing them to gain complete control over what the DVD will and will not accept.

DVD burns of games anyone?

All these claims are coming from a user who calls himself “TheSpecialist” who in the past was credited with a firmware hack. That particular hack never saw the light of day for several reasons.

Quote: “About the reasons for me not releasing a hack: EVERYBODY who has some brains could at least think of 1 VERY good reason not to release it. There are several very good reasons not to release it, while I couldn’t think of *one* good release to release it. We hackers are really NOT interested in playing backup games. Man, I don’t even have a ‘live’ account. The only reason I own a XBOX 1 is that I won one. We hackers are interested in security processes, finding flaws, the thrills, the suspense to go where no one has gone before … The feeling of outsmartening the XBOX development team that worked several years on security. It’s like a gigantic puzzle we love to solve, finding a way in … THAT’s what we love. We did that and had great fun all the way. But we realise that releasing a hack would have several results we really can’t accept.”

So we pickup where we left off; The latest news with a few quotes from TheSpecialist’s latest posts.

“Word on the street is that some smart people of this board combined their forces, formed an underground team and are very, VERY close to getting the first 360 backup bootingÂ…Firmware. I doubt youÂ’ll see some kind of OTHER hack soon, that lets you boot unsigned code for example. MS did a very good job on the 360 itself this time. However, they made a big mistake by forgetting about the firmware. They even didnÂ’t remove the debug routines from the FW, quite amazing Â… The 360 has a little bit more advanced protection in its FW than the original xbox, but still, they did some stupid things (like forgetting about the debug routines, that were very helpful to us, hehe, and most importantly: not signing the firmware). IÂ’m betting theyÂ’ll develop the MPU in the drive from scratch for their next gen consoles and sign the code in the FW.“

As you can see from the post, it’s all about the firmware not getting signed, which is a big no-no from a security standpoint. Even if Microsoft were to release an update via Live to fix the modification, a new firmware could be installed again.

But there is more to have to deal with besides just the firmware, since the other parts of the Xbox360 security is… well secure. It could be a while before we’re seeing any homebrew appearing.

News has surfaced that a flaw in the Xbox360 DVD firmware could possibly allow a hacker to install their own custom firmware. Thus allowing them to gain complete control over what the DVD will and will not accept.

DVD burns of games anyone?

All these claims are coming from a user who calls himself “TheSpecialist” who in the past was credited with a firmware hack. That particular hack never saw the light of day for several reasons.

Quote: “About the reasons for me not releasing a hack: EVERYBODY who has some brains could at least think of 1 VERY good reason not to release it. There are several very good reasons not to release it, while I couldn’t think of *one* good release to release it. We hackers are really NOT interested in playing backup games. Man, I don’t even have a ‘live’ account. The only reason I own a XBOX 1 is that I won one. We hackers are interested in security processes, finding flaws, the thrills, the suspense to go where no one has gone before … The feeling of outsmartening the XBOX development team that worked several years on security. It’s like a gigantic puzzle we love to solve, finding a way in … THAT’s what we love. We did that and had great fun all the way. But we realise that releasing a hack would have several results we really can’t accept.”

So we pickup where we left off; The latest news with a few quotes from TheSpecialist’s latest posts.

“Word on the street is that some smart people of this board combined their forces, formed an underground team and are very, VERY close to getting the first 360 backup bootingÂ…Firmware. I doubt youÂ’ll see some kind of OTHER hack soon, that lets you boot unsigned code for example. MS did a very good job on the 360 itself this time. However, they made a big mistake by forgetting about the firmware. They even didnÂ’t remove the debug routines from the FW, quite amazing Â… The 360 has a little bit more advanced protection in its FW than the original xbox, but still, they did some stupid things (like forgetting about the debug routines, that were very helpful to us, hehe, and most importantly: not signing the firmware). IÂ’m betting theyÂ’ll develop the MPU in the drive from scratch for their next gen consoles and sign the code in the FW.“

As you can see from the post, it’s all about the firmware not getting signed, which is a big no-no from a security standpoint. Even if Microsoft were to release an update via Live to fix the modification, a new firmware could be installed again.

But there is more to have to deal with besides just the firmware, since the other parts of the Xbox360 security is… well secure. It could be a while before we’re seeing any homebrew appearing.