Sony Faces Unpatchable PS5 Jailbreak Threat After ROM Keys Leak

The PlayStation 5 has essentially been cracked, just in time for 2026, and it would appear that short of releasing a new hardware revision, there's not much Sony can do about it. This is because PlayStation 5 hackers have found the BootROM (Level 0) keys for the PlayStation 5, which enables decryption of the bootloader and, from there, allows hackers to control what software can run on the machine.

In the short-term, this doesn't mean much, but soon enough, custom firmware and unlicensed backups will likely be available for current PlayStation 5 hardware. TheCyberSecGuru anticipates that "we will see more sophisticated game backups and loaders appearing in 2026", and that "this leak significantly shortens the timeline for mass piracy". The route to (legitimate and illegitimate) emulation has also become a lot shorter, since leaked PS5 BootROM keys will make it easier for emulators to replicate booting and decrypting ...