A security researcher by the name of Sammy Hajhamid, or pepsipu on X, recently claimed that they have successfully jailbroken the Nintendo Switch 2 console. To celebrate their success, the first thing they did was to mod the avatars of Cinnamoroll, Peter Griffin, and Hatsune Miku into Mario Kart World.
According to the developer, they used an exploit called NS2JB that reportedly works on firmware 23.0.1, the latest version on the Switch 2. Unlike conventional hardware modifications, though, this method does not require the modder to physically break open the console or install a mod chip. Instead, they used a more modern and up to date approach: AI.
“ns2jb is a software-only, tethered jailbreak for the Switch 2. It allows running arbitrary native code as any ordinary sysmodule, and as the built-in fs sysmodule. This lets us run homebrew, reverse engineer and mod Switch 2 games, back up save files off the Switch, and access most of the Switch 2’s peripherals through MMIO. To my knowledge, it’s the first such exploit for the Switch 2.”
To get into the technical details, pepsipu explains that the exploit takes advantage of security flaws in SmileBNASIC, which is a programming app that originally released for the first Nintendo Switch and its system software. As to where AI came into play, they say that they used OpenAI Codex to help seek out the vulnerabilities, which they then used to develop the exploit.
The exploit is far from perfect, unfortunately. Pepsipu makes it clear that it doesn’t completely jailbreak the Switch 2, and that it requires a connected computer to pull off, and it must be activated again after restarting the console. Also, it doesn’t provide full control over the Switch 2’s OS.
Pepsipu has released the exploit on GitLab, complete with instructions on how to get it running, for the homebrew community to dive straight into. And as of right now, the ball is back inside Nintendo’s court.
(Source: pepsipu via X, Videocardz, GitLab)
