Just a short Public Service Announcement for our users, particularly the ones who like their Homebrew on Nintendo platforms. The Homebrew community tends to be positive and participating in it is a recipe for a good time, but no group of people is free of bad actors with too much time on their hands. We have reason to believe that in the near future we'll see a lot of suspicious uploads of innocent-looking applications that are actually concealed console brickers and viruses. We came across a disconcerting threat against our site, among others, made by a Wii malware creator.

The safety of our users is our number one priority, so we strongly urge forum-goers to be weary of applications uploaded to the site recently, particularly if they come from relatively new accounts. We apologise for this inconvenience, but sadly there is little we can do besides staying vigilant and dealing swiftly with any and all suspicious content.

Stay safe, and keep on Tempin'!

 

[Foxi4]

That's very good! Thank you for the explanation.

At the very least that's what it's supposed to do, but I additionally spoilered it now as well. Nothing we can really do about it, the word will spread either way, but I won't give them the satisfaction of mentioning them by name.

 

[tabzer]

Enjoy your paperweight!

Ironically, this breathes new life into the Wii.

 

[AceX]

textbook villain of a movie/video game, it's almost hilarious.

Ikr, I also don't understand why they'd warn people.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Verify wiibrew edits
Only source anything from there outside of what already exists

That's basically all you'd have to do in terms of mitigating something like this. There's probably like 6 teenagers that are bored enough to waste time attempting anything significant with this, the public release would amount to Discord trolls, again, with literally nothing else to do.

If you're trying to mass brick a bunch of consoles, try making it for something that's in active development and not a $20 box that any person with half a brain has been able to mod for the entire decade. You'd at least have some credibility as a fuckstick, not just a fuckstick.

EDIT: You're only keeping this private for 1 week? Come on guys, gotta be more confident than that

Sshh, don't give them ideas...

 

[Forgotten_Email]

I still don't get why people do this (unless they're stealing keys or something so they can bypass bans). It's pointless and all you do is get yourself a horrible reputation.

 

[NicEXE]

Yes, only download from official Github. Really sad that there are people out to brick consoles.

I'm pretty sure I've encountered some open-source malware on Github. Just because it's on Github, doesn't mean it's safe.

 

[pLaYeR^^]

I'm pretty sure I've encountered some open-source malware on Github. Just because it's on Github, doesn't mean it's safe.

That's why I said official (official repository).

 

[AmandaRose]

Ikr, I also don't understand why they'd warn people.

They warn people to create fear confusion and or misdirection its no different than when the Irish Republican Army used to plant bombs then phone the police 15 mins before the bomb went off.

They would say something like we have placed a bomb in Trafalgar Square you have 15 minutes.

This would create instant fear and panic/confusion as the police scrambled to clear out the place the bomb was planted.

75% of the time the bomb would be in the place they said. And 25% of the time it would be somewhere else (thus the misdirection)

I can easily see them talking about attacking the Wii and bam they realese shit that bricks the Switch cause everyone is completely focused on the fact they said they were going after the Wii.

Bottom line be very careful over the next few days/weeks whatever system you are downloading homebrew for

 

[Pipistrele]

Now that's a waste of time

 

[bodefuceta]

I wonder if there are any curated lists of wii homebrew.

 

[Foxi4]

They warn people to create fear confusion and or misdirection its no different than when the Irish Republican Army used to plant bombs then phone the police 15 mins before the bomb went off.

They would say something like we have placed a bomb in Trafalgar Square you have 15 minutes.

This would create instant fear and panic/confusion as the police scrambled to clear out the place the bomb was planted.

75% of the time the bomb would be in the place they said. And 25% of the time it would be somewhere else (thus the misdirection)

I can easily see them talking about attacking the Wii and bam they realese shit that bricks the Switch cause everyone is completely focused on the fact they said they were going after the Wii.

Bottom line be very careful over the next few days/weeks whatever system you are downloading homebrew for

We also suspect that there might be some misdirection going on, which is why we strongly advise using common sense and good judgement when installing Homebrew on *any* system. If it doesn't seem right, don't risk it.

 

[DSoryu]

They warn people to create fear confusion and or misdirection its no different than when the Irish Republican Army used to plant bombs then phone the police 15 mins before the bomb went off.

They would say something like we have placed a bomb in Trafalgar Square you have 15 minutes.

This would create instant fear and panic/confusion as the police scrambled to clear out the place the bomb was planted.

75% of the time the bomb would be in the place they said. And 25% of the time it would be somewhere else (thus the misdirection)

I can easily see them talking about attacking the Wii and bam they realese shit that bricks the Switch cause everyone is completely focused on the fact they said they were going after the Wii.

Bottom line be very careful over the next few days/weeks whatever system you are downloading homebrew for

Totally what I'm thinking. They are aiming anything else but the Wii, cause is dead. They most likely would be interested in a recent system, and one well documented, so 3DS and/or Vita aren't out of the scope.

 

[comput3rus3r]

who's still putting new files into their wii's? my wiiu's is already golden. I guess this could affect somebody just starting out in the wii scene lol.
Still, it just sounds like some troll seeking attention.

 

[BLsquared]

@Foxi4 Thank you for your amazing service in bringing this to light. This does sound a little..off, though, as other have said.
From my experience, I'm sure you'll be able to dig something up on what's going on. I'm just glad I haven't added any new homebrew to my Wii in years.
My 3DS, however... I really hope that's not the real target.
Wait.
Those are all features the 3DS also has, right? And it's a bit more popular right now.
Hmm.

 

[DSoryu]

For those who develop homebrew/programs: It is possible to make a sort of timebomb that triggers a brick code at an specific date? If so, is possible it could be hidden on an already existing homebrew?

Just imagine an specific fork of Luma 3DS having such thing. Oh my.

 

[BLsquared]

For those who develop homebrew/programs: It is possible to make a sort of timebomb that triggers a brick code at an specific date? If so, is possible it could be hidden on an already existing homebrew?

Just imagine an specific fork of Luma 3DS having such thing. Oh my.

And didn't the 3DS CFWs just go through a wave of updates within the past few months?

 

[|<roni&g]

Lol sad morons, sad sad sad. They will never get into my Wii n that’s a fact jack.

 

[DSoryu]

And didn't the 3DS CFWs just go through a wave of updates within the past few months?

Yeah, also, a lot of users have cutsom forks from other people, for example, the Majora's Mask restoration project uses a Luma fork that supports BPS/IPS patches (I have that installed), and I think that a well known Mario Kart 7 Hack uses the same.

Anyway, the source for those is public, so anyone could spot something fishy just by looking at it... but I don't know how many people drops by to read someone elses code on github and try to verify if anything weird is going on.

 

[BLsquared]

Yeah, also, a lot of users have cutsom forks from other people, for example, the Majora's Mask restoration project uses a Luma fork that supports BPS/IPS patches (I have that installed), and I think that a well known Mario Kart 7 Hack uses the same.

Anyway, the source for those is public, so anyone could spot something fishy just by looking at it... but I don't know how many people drops by to read someone elses code on github and try to verify if anything weird is going on.

Honestly, we need to figure out their motive for this. Because this could be a member that contributed the changes as a hidden attack.
But until we have evidence, we're just hypothesizing and freaking over possibly nothing...maybe

 

[Larsenv]

I have known about this before this PSA was posted, since I've been involved in the Wii scene. (In November, it'll have been 7 years since I started. Wow!)

As far as we know, it's one idiot doing this for attention. It started when he linked a fake Pong game in a Discord server that in reality corrupts your Wii Menu. We have no idea who this guy really is, he seems to be using a throwaway account. We have reported his GitHub and taken steps on Discord to make sure this isn't spread.

Thankfully, there have been no reports of someone's actual Wii being bricked. If it was bricked, then you might lose your save files and Miis without a backup, but you can buy a new one for as low as $30 on eBay.

 

[Essasetic]

I'll be sure to keep my eye out on the Wii forums on September 7th. I doubt that this is actually real and it's just trolls looking to get a reaction.

If that's the case then they've certainly done a good job looking at the thread.