Earlier this year, known scene member and exploit creator "Grimdoomer" released the BadUpdate hypervisor exploit for the Xbox 360, while also revealing his retirement from console hacking. It looks like he couldn't stay away from digging into how the 360 ticks, however, because Grimdoomer is back, and has a massive announcement: there's an Xbox 360 softmod method on the horizon. In the past, Grimdoomer himself has claimed that there would never be anything more elaborate than the proof-of-concept hypervisor exploit, but he's one-upped himself, with a video that teases a 360 softmod method.

There is no ETA on any release, and Grimdoomer explains that the process will take time.

I know I said I retired from console hacking but I got one more in me. An Xbox 360 softmod is coming, no eta yet, THIS WILL TAKE TIME to finish. I still can't believe this exploit chain works, and I also can't believe I spent 20 hours a day for the last 3 weeks straight working on this. I'm so tired but seeing that coffee cup on screen was worth it

Source

 

[yankii]

Studio Ghibli? Is that you?

 

[x65943]

His tweets leading up to this announcement were all about tinkering with hard drives

I wonder if you will need a specific hard drive when this is released - hopefully not one with limited availability

I wonder if the next step is trying to get it working on more hardware?

Exciting times

 

[NetSanity]

I'm just glad to see softmods are finally being developed for the 360.

 

[SylverReZ]

That's super interesting, can't wait to see what's coming up in the future. Maybe a full softmod without a temporary one this time?

 

[K3Nv4]

This is why it can't be done in modding should never be worded.

 

[x65943]

This is why it can't be done in modding should never be worded.

I think I'm dumb, but it took me a moment to realize what you were saying was

"This is why 'it can't be done' should never be said [in reference to modding]"

 

[K3Nv4]

I think I'm dumb, but it took me a moment to realize what you were saying was

"This is why 'it can't be done' should never be said [in reference to modding]"

By now people should have better open minds to what modding can accomplish. Too many times I've seen messages like "that will never happen" then it happens.

 

[x65943]

By now people should have better open minds to what modding can accomplish. Too many times I've seen messages like "that will never happen" then it happens.

to be fair release date of this isn't confirmed yet, and it may very well be 20+ years after console launch (November 2005)

so if someone told you this wasn't going to happen 10 years ago, it was a fair assessment

 

[K3Nv4]

to be fair release date of this isn't confirmed yet, and it may very well be 20+ years after console launch (November 2005)

so if someone told you this wasn't going to happen 10 years ago, it was a fair assessment

Not entirely true, ps5 is a good example. No one thought we'd get cfw through out it's life but we're getting it. Ps4 is almost hacked to latest firmware. Never assume something can't be done with electronics. Someone's probably sitting on a mega switch 1 cfw right now but afraid of lawsuits that follows. Anything running software can be modded with the smallest security breach or loophole people at corporate fail to see or miss during development.

 

[Exnor]

I hope its true.

I still have my 360 connected to my living room TV.

 

[CoolMe]

His tweets leading up to this announcement were all about tinkering with hard drives

I wonder if you will need a specific hard drive when this is released - hopefully not one with limited availability

considering BadUpdate exploit is done with just plain usb flash drives, don't think that is an issue here. that said for stock 360's if you want to upgrade/change the hdd it's a bit a tough (tho it's an easy process if it's rgh'ed) and possibly what he could be working on here (as well as the upgrading of BadUpdate exploit/softmod) to bypass that hdd model check to make it easy, but that's just a guess, also no idea if it's possible at that level.

I wonder if the next step is trying to get it working on more hardware?

BadUpdate works on all even Winchester 360s iirc so that's also shouldn't be an issue (correct me if I'm wrong)

---

He's obv working on reducing the waiting time when triggering the exploit, if it could get down even to ~5mins it's a success in my book even if it's not guaranteed half the time

 

[K3Nv4]

considering BadUpdate exploit is done with just plain usb flash drives, don't think that is an issue here. that said for stock 360's if you want to upgrade/change the hdd it's a bit a tough (tho it's an easy process if it's rgh'ed) and possibly what he could be working on here (as well as the upgrading of BadUpdate exploit/softmod) to bypass that hdd model check to make it easy, but that's just a guess, also no idea if it's possible at that level.

BadUpdate works on all even Winchester 360s iirc so that's also not an issue

If this is a perma usb softmod usb storage will still be fine could probably even run 360 games directly off usb 2.0 so upgrading internal hdd isn't a huge miss.

 

[CoolMe]

could probably even run 360 games directly off usb 2.0

isn't that already possible? (could be mistaken)

 

[x65943]

considering BadUpdate exploit is done with just plain usb flash drives, don't think that is an issue here. that said for stock 360's if you want to upgrade/change the hdd it's a bit a tough (tho it's an easy process if it's rgh'ed) and possibly what he could be working on here (as well as the upgrading of BadUpdate exploit/softmod) to bypass that hdd model check to make it easy, but that's just a guess, also no idea if it's possible at that level.

BadUpdate works on all even Winchester 360s iirc so that's also shouldn't be an issue (correct me if I'm wrong)

---

He's obv working on reducing the waiting time when triggering the exploit, if it could get down even to ~5mins it's a success in my book even if it's not guaranteed half the time

yes that is how bad update works, but it is not persistent

this is persistent - so it's not the same thing (totally) and will likely work differently

him working with hard drives for weeks makes me suspect part of its persistence has to do with the hdd itself. Perhaps akin to the persistent wiiu exploit which runs code injected into the health and safety app on boot- I'm curious if something similar is achieved here by altering the code that comes from the hdd

we'll see

and by working with more hardware I don't mean more xbox revisions, but more hdd revisions

 

[ciaomao]

isn't that already possible? (could be mistaken)

It is possible with the the bad update.

Btw. good Timing, I hard modded my Box Just a few days ago.

 

[CoolMe]

this is persistent - so it's not the same thing (totally) and will likely work differently

him working with hard drives for weeks makes me suspect part of its persistence has to do with the hdd itself. Perhaps akin to the persistent wiiu exploit which runs code injected into the health and safety app on boot- I'm curious if something similar is achieved here by altering the code that comes from the hdd

that actually sounds interesting, but i doubt internal hdd should have any advantage over ext usb (regarding launching the HV exploit), but you could be right. we'll see

 

[K3Nv4]

that actually sounds interesting, but i doubt internal hdd should have any advantage over ext usb, but you could be right. we'll see

Yeah simply just wanting to upgrade internal storage I mean wouldn't be a huge loss since speeds are still fine external.

 

[x65943]

that actually sounds interesting, but i doubt internal hdd should have any advantage over ext usb (regarding launching the HV exploit), but you could be right. we'll see

Let me preface this by saying I know absolutely nothing about xbox modding

but perhaps the console treats encrypted hdd/sdd storage differently from ex usb, and can load data from hdd/sdd at boot

if part of the FW is loaded from hdd/sdd at boot time, it would be possible to replace that code with something else

now if our modder pal is getting into low level commands of hdd/sdds, it makes me wonder is he somehow feeding the xbox some code that it thinks is coming from a specific sector of the hdd - but is actually coming from some sort of injected code placed by our pal

this is my 30,000 ft view/idea of how this might work with 0 underlying understanding of basically anything

 

[The Real Jdbye]

He's obv working on reducing the waiting time when triggering the exploit, if it could get down even to ~5mins it's a success in my book even if it's not guaranteed half the time

Already been done. It's down to around 1 min with BadUpdate 1.2 (and rarely hangs anymore)


This isn't that. It very much sounds like this is a brand new exploit, from the way it's worded, and the clip. (Which might still use BadUpdate for the initial install, since it's the most accessible entry point)
Any further work on BadUpdate would be redundant after that point.