Xbox 360 cracked

[wraggster]

via register

Hardware hackers have developed a technique to hack Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming console so that it might be possible to run alternative operating systems on the hardware.

The approach, which only works given physical access to the hardware and is strictly for fun, relies on a taking advantage of a vulnerability in the Xbox 360 hypervisor. Properly exploited, the bug allows tinkerers to run arbitrary code (even an alternative OS) with full privileges and full hardware access.

The hypervisor on Xbox 360 machines controls access to memory and provides encryption and decryption services. The approach means that all games and other applications running on the Xbox 360, in theory at least, need to be cryptographically signed with Microsoft's private key and run in non-privileged read-only mode.

Unprivileged code cannot change executable code, but flaws in the way unprivileged code interacts with the hypervisor via the syscall instruction laid the groundwork to the hack.

Full details on the ingenious exploit, including proof of concept code, were published on BugTraq on Wednesday. The anonymous hackers tipped Microsoft off about the issue last month and "following cordial discussions" the software giant quickly produced a patch. The hack has been possible since since the bug was introduced in late October.

[BrooksyX]

Interesting, hopefully something good will come out of this someday.

[JesusXP]

this was posted yesterday I believe at Xbox-Scene.. why dont you guys source them instead of the register?

[zidanerick]

Would be nice if we could run OS X on a 360, makes a cheap lanning system

[Darksaviour69]

this was posted yesterday I believe at Xbox-Scene.. why dont you guys source them instead of the register?

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=54422

[tiosolid]

unfortunately it was already patched ;/

[acn010]

it was?
damn it sucks :P
it was interesting to read when something has been exploited

[Video_freak]

I hope that we can run homebrew on the 360 someday. It's so powerful, and as long as I can still play on XBox Live , I would pay for a chip to solder on.

[mnuhaily22]

man, imagine running vista on your 360...

[BrooksyX]

I think this would work if someone made a dual firmware flash chip like the psp modchip. So on one flash you could have the official M$ firmware and on the other flash have the unlocked firmware. Then you could have all the emulators and the OS on an external hdd so M$ doesn't detect any of the homebrew files.

edit: Hello World Homebrew Application released! check it out on http://xbox-scene.com/

Hopefully we will see a emulator or custum dashboard in the next few weeks.