Hacking Question, is there any progress on a V2 softmod exploit?

[Cystra]

Soooooo... we all know that there is no V2 exploit as of April 2024, but between the release of the V2 switch and today's date, has there been any sort of progress for creating a softmod exploit?

 

[Hayato213]

Nope, if you want CFW on V2 unit get it hard modded with a modchip.

 

[urherenow]

But there was a whole lot of progress on the mod chips. They still aren't any easier to install, but since the method was thoroughly cracked, and people figured out how to do it with various RP2040 chips, the price has come waaay down. If you're spending $20 right now on a chip, you're spending too much (if not for the labor of someone doing the install for you).

 

[Cystra]

Nope, if you want CFW on V2 unit get it hard modded with a modchip.

Okay. Last time I heard, someone tried to make progress on finding an exploit for the V2 chip. Any news on that?

Post automatically merged: Apr 18, 2024

But there was a whole lot of progress on the mod chips. They still aren't any easier to install, but since the method was thoroughly cracked, and people figured out how to do it with various RP2040 chips, the price has come waaay down. If you're spending $20 right now on a chip, you're spending too much (if not for the labor of someone doing the install for you).

Fair, although there doesn't seem to be a good soldering place near me... Fuck it, I'm decking out a V1 switch.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Soooooo... we all know that there is no V2 exploit as of April 2024, but between the release of the V2 switch and today's date, has there been any sort of progress for creating a softmod exploit?

Publicly, no.
That's all we know.
I don't expect to see any news about a new softmod until after the end of the Switch's life cycle.
Exploits are difficult to find on the Switch, and the moment another softmod exploit is released, Nintendo would quickly patch it.
So it makes more sense to save it until the Switch 2 when Nintendo no longer cares about the Switch 1 so it won't get patched and more people can enjoy it.
That is unless a discovered (unannounced) softmod exploit gets patched, then there would be no reason not to release it.
This happened often on Sony consoles (largely due to Sony paying out large bounties for information on exploits with the stipulation that nothing is made public until a certain amount of time afterwards). But Nintendo are not really known for preemptively discovering and patching exploits, they usually wait until one is made public. Generally, they just do the bare minimum to slow down pirates/homebrew enthusiasts. On the plus side, if there is another softmod exploit, Nintendo are unlikely to patch it as long as it's kept secret, so the chances of it still working after Switch EOL if it's kept secret until then are high.

We know certain parts of the exploit chain do work on newer firmwares. Parts of it work up to at least 7.x, meaning an exploit is theoretically easier on firmwares <= 7.x. That would probably not be a very useful firmware to exploit though as I doubt many people still run a firmware below that, it's very old.
But it's not much use without the rest of the exploit chain, and the most difficult part (and the hardest to find a replacement for) did get patched long before 7.x.

No guarantees that an exploit for newer FW will ever be found though. Only that if it does happen, it's likely to be kept secret until Switch EOL.

There is also the fact that once Nintendo moves on from the Switch, the lack of any further system updates will make it possible to analyze the latest firmware update in extreme depth. It's possible someone will discover something that was previously missed, since not having new firmware updates to worry about, or repeatedly analyzing every firmware version in the hopes of finding something, but just be able to focus on the latest (since that should be the main focus at that point), makes the job easier.

I do believe everything gets hacked eventually and latest Switch FW is no exception. Look at how many new 3DS exploits were discovered after 3DS EOL. We already had good exploits for latest FW and the system blown wide open but it didn't stop people continuing to look, and eventually they found stuff and blew it open even wider (something I genuinely didn't think possible)

 

[linuxares]

@The Real Jdbye wasnt it not like full exploit mode either?

As of now, just get a Mig Switch or a Modchip.

 

[impeeza]

Soooooo... we all know that there is no V2 exploit as of April 2024, but between the release of the V2 switch and today's date, has there been any sort of progress for creating a softmod exploit?

are you able to read?

This has been explained in full on almost all treads about the issue. you can find them using the search bar at top of the site.

No is not and WILL NOT be any advance nor possibility of soft mod for patched units, Big N do it very well this time.

maybe on 10 years but none on the foreseeable future.

 

[Hayato213]

Okay. Last time I heard, someone tried to make progress on finding an exploit for the V2 chip. Any news on that?

Post automatically merged: Apr 18, 2024

Fair, although there doesn't seem to be a good soldering place near me... Fuck it, I'm decking out a V1 switch.

I never public heard of the v2 soft exploit you are talking about, SciresM said Mariko aka V2 has no exploitable bugs.

 

[Ryab]

Soooooo... we all know that there is no V2 exploit as of April 2024, but between the release of the V2 switch and today's date, has there been any sort of progress for creating a softmod exploit?

There just isnt anything to go off of. Horizon (switch OS) has been searched top to bottom continuously and whilst exploits have been found there hasn't been anything that can give the kernel access required. It is really seeming like the only hope for V2 past a chip is Nintendo screwing up with a software update or some new hardware fault found.

 

[masagrator]

We have fully reimplemented microkernel, you can find it in Atmosphere's source code. There are no kernel exploits hidden.

 

[impeeza]

To be fair has not been any exploit since FW 4.01 and V1 have a HARDWARE fail is no a software exploit, so really on the practice there has been no real software exploit so many years ago.

 

[Ondrashek06]

Hey, at least Mig Switch exists now. Back then, it was full-on impossible to have any sort of unofficial stuff on a Mariko if you did not have soldering skills.

I ended up biting the bullet and just getting an unpatched Erista.

I understand how it feels.

Not to mention that Nintendo has a HackerOne, which is a site where you can submit critical exploits and get boatloads of money (ranging from $100 to $20k). Some viable exploits probably existed, but the ones that discovered them kept them private and submitted them to Nintendo for the $$$.

 

[Lumpofcoal]

I don't think there will be any because even the Erista relied on a hardware vulnerability (RCM) to enable software exploit. If ninty has their hardware (and I'm sure they have been paying far more attention to it since) sealed up tight, I don't think it would be possible to do a softmod.

 

[masagrator]

even the Erista relied on a hardware vulnerability (RCM) to enable software exploit.

Actually that's wrong. Soft exploit was first discovered, but before it was fleshed out to usable state RCM exploit came out and everybody moved to it.

 

[impeeza]

Actually that's wrong. Soft exploit was first discovered, but before it was fleshed out to usable state RCM exploit came out and everybody move to it.

And the soft exploits was patched on FW bigger than 4.0.1 so no other one will be possible.

 

[Lumpofcoal]

Actually that's wrong. Soft exploit was first discovered, but before it was fleshed out to usable state RCM exploit came out and everybody moved to it.

My bad, thank you for the clarification!

 

[Ryab]

Hey, at least Mig Switch exists now. Back then, it was full-on impossible to have any sort of unofficial stuff on a Mariko if you did not have soldering skills.

I ended up biting the bullet and just getting an unpatched Erista.

I understand how it feels.

Not to mention that Nintendo has a HackerOne, which is a site where you can submit critical exploits and get boatloads of money (ranging from $100 to $20k). Some viable exploits probably existed, but the ones that discovered them kept them private and submitted them to Nintendo for the $$$.

Yeah but to a lot of people it's not piracy that we want. We want to be able to run homebrew specifically. You may say that's never the case but take a look at the Xbox One and Series. They provided us with a dev mode to run homebrew and emulators and nobody has cared to try and hack the system.