Nintendo Switch Hacked: The company was claiming to have added advanced security codes in this version of Switch Firmware.
The problems for Nintendo console owners are far from over as the latest firmware version got hacked in merely a few hours. According to reports, the newly rolled out Firmware for Nintendo Switch, the much-awaited version 7.0.0 that was supposed make the console more stable and rich in language support, has been hacked in exactly four hours after going live.
See: Nintendo Switch Hacked to Run Pirated Games
Ironically, Nintendo claimed to have added advanced security codes in this version of Switch Firmware to prevent hacking but perhaps the company underestimated the capabilities of security researchers.
As expected, Nintendo has become a mocking stock across the social media especially on Reddit as fans are shocked at how easily and quickly hackers managed to take down the supposedly advanced security codes while hackers are all praises for the work of the hacker, who is known by the alias “Elmirorac”.
7.0.0 cracked
Here are some SHA256 hashes in celebration :)
PK11: 434FA7D07A8D4FDFD8630AC40FF9BC697E0DE40E0041E225F154BEB9571044E9
Master key: 4EC96B8CB01B8DCE382149443430B2B6EBCB2983348AFA04A25E53609DABEDF6— motezazer (@elmirorac) January 29, 2019
Elmirorac was supported by another hacker “SciresM” in this hacking feat. SciresM is the same hacker last year claimed that the Switch console is already fully compromised and the flaw can only be fixed by a hardware upgrade. This means, the excessive reliance of Nintendo Switch on Nvidia Tegra hardware hasn’t proved much favorable for the console as it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately.
Probably, the time has come for Nintendo to think about installing a brand new chipset in its console. Otherwise, the issue seems to be irreversible and it will only add more pain to the misery of Switch users and game developers by promoting piracy.
The Tegra Bootrom bug is already a known issue. Even Google needs to pay attention to the havoc this chipset has caused in the lives of Switch users as Tegra chips are also used in Android devices.