A flaw in the Nintendo Switch’s Nvidia chip has opened it up to hackers, allowing the possibility for pirates to run their own games on the console. What is slightly more worrying for Nintendo is that this hack cannot be patched for the millions of Switches already in the hands of consumers.
The problem lies with the ROM of the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, where the “Boot and Power Management Processor” can be tricked into executing any additional code that is up to 65,535 bytes in size. Which is any enough backdoor for more hackers to exploit; although it may require a bit more technical knowledge than the average gamer will have.
This flaw was originally identified months ago, with both Nintendo and Nvidia alerted to its existence. However, despite the secrecy, there is little either company can actually do to fix it. Altering the ROM will require Nintendo to recall all the sold consoles and fix them at the factory.
That said, it is likely that this flaw will be corrected on all future versions of the Nintendo Switch. Preventing it from spreading out of control.
Details of the exploit are already available on GitHub, although it isn’t all that easy to follow. Those that can follow it should be able to jailbreak their own Switches; paving the way for running additional software that hasn’t been approved by Nintendo. Or just pirate games really.
[Source: TechCrunch]
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