Many have been the people in the world who have been working during practically the arrival on the market of the Nintendo Switch to get your operating system hacked. At the same time, we are sure you are thinking, there have also been many Nintendo engineers and security experts who have been patching possible system errors to ensure that this process could not be carried out in the famous game console of the Japanese company.
After all these months of waiting, especially after the first clues came to light last February that alarmed us all about the fact that finally the console could be hacked, today we have the definitive confirmation, same that comes to us from two different groups of exploit developers and who confirm that, anyone who wants, will be able to fully customize their unit thanks to a vulnerability detected in the Nvidia Tegra X1 processor present on the console.
Although the vulnerability used to hack the Nintendo Switch is known, nobody will be able to do anything to correct the error
Without a doubt, the most worrying thing for Nintendo today is the fact that, despite the fact that its engineers, due to the official publication by the two groups of developers of exploits of how the process is carried out and what vulnerability has been used to hack the Nintendo console, your engineers can't do anything, at least on game consoles that have already left the factory and they are distributed all over the world, whether they have already been purchased or are still distributed in stores.
Going into a little more detail, apparently we are talking about a small fault detected in the Tegra X1 SoC. Thanks to it, now any user with a minimum of knowledge will be able to run source code on their Nintendo Switch with the ability to allow them to install, for example, a Linux operating system, emulators, unofficial games and it could even get to the point, or at least that is what is already discussed in the community, to make backup copies of the games stored in the game console.
ReSwitched and FailOverflow have been responsible for the hack to the Nintendo Switch
Those responsible for this milestone have been the ReSwitched and FailOverflow teams. In the specific case of the equipment ReSwitched, its members have already had time to develop a tool known as Fusee Gelee and it works in a way as simple as exploit the vulnerability present in the Nvidia Tegra X1 when performing a USB recovery. At this point you access the bootROM, which allows you to install a new firmware completely customized in a very simple way, an option that can be used by many users.
Regarding the proposal of failoverflow, we met with ShofEL2. Thanks to this tool you can install Linux-based distributions and even emulators. This tool is already available to any user who wants to use it, although it is not as simple as the previous one, partly because the doing so carries a high risk that can end up with your console on fire because you have to play with the voltages of the Nintendo Switch itselfWhat's more, as it appears on the FailOverflow website:
If your Switch catches fire or becomes Ouya, it's not our fault. Seriously, don't complain if something goes wrong.
ReSwitched expects to have the guides for the use of its software ready before June 15
Be that as it may, in order to install either of the two exploits you have to create a short circuit in one of the right Joy-Con connector pins. Thanks precisely to this small short circuit, the USB recovery mode is activated. The problem with Nvidia's Tegra X1 is that, during testing, the platform requests 65.535 bytes for each request, an amount that far exceeds the capacity of the DMA buffer in the bootROM. Due to this overflow, access is given to all the protected applications of the system, allowing any type of code to be executed.
At the moment Nintendo has not positioned itself as to a possible solution that it can give to all users who use these techniques to hack their device. Repairing them via software is not a viable solution since a large part of the software used would have to be changed, so the developers of this exploit bet more that the company can block access to online services to users who personalize their devices.
As a final detail, tell you that, as has been announced by the ReSwitched components, its software and all the guides and tutorials necessary to use them will be ready before next June 15.