The Xbox 360 is a difficult console to hack. If you want to play modded games and take advantage of homebrew content, the console requires a physical mod which has to be soldered onto the board. This JTAG exploit means that most users don’t mod their console due to the inconvenience. However, that is about to change… sort of.
Xbox 360 modders have discovered a new way to get the console unlocked by using a new software-only exploit known as BadUpdate. The exploit allows you to mod the console using a USB key. As a result, users can bypass Microsoft’s Hypervisor protections and run unsigned code, apps, and games.
The exploit is a bit flimsy and is still limited to requiring specific software in order to proceed with the hack. The modders also say that each and every executable that you want to use on the console has to be patched in order to run properly. You’ll also need to run the exploit each time you restart the console in order to launch it into this BadUpdate mode. So essentially, it is a bit of work.
Lastly, and this is probably the most important factor which will decide if you can actually pull this hack off, you’ll need a certain game which opens up the console to be exploited. You can either use Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland or Rock Band Blitz.
A video from Modern Vintage Gamer runs through the process and you can see that like most other exploits, this is quite a story to set up. He also clarifies that the exploit will unlikely get easier to use and that the 30% success rate that the console will boot into exploit mode won’t improve.
Still, this is quite a cool thing to see happen all these years after the Xbox 360 console launched. The console is still technically one of the most complicated pieces of hardware to hack and apart from this USB key hack, you will still need to use the physical JTAG exploit in order to mod it.
To add, this hack now marks the third time and the third console that has been hacked by using a Tony Hawks game. Prior to this, Tony Hawks was used to hack the original Xbox console and PS One.
