Any Xbox 360 can now be hacked with just a USB Flash Drive

A look a the newest Xbox 360 software only Hypervisor Hack known as BadUpdate. It requires a Xbox 360 - any model including the later Winchester revisions - on the latest system version (17559), a USB flash drive, Rock Band Blitz Trial and some patience. This latest hack is a very exciting update for the Xbox 360 community. In today's episode we take a closer look at the BadUpdate exploit.

Sources/Links:

Timestamps:

00:00 - Bad Update Exploit.
04:26 - Tony Hawk isn't needed.
06:21 - Running the exploit
13:31 - Is it worth it?
16:01 - Conclusion

Social Media Links :

#Xbox360 #BadUpdate

[ModernVintageGamer]

Small correction : technically the King Kong Shader hack was the first software only hypervisor exploit from 2007. However barely anyone was ever able to run it

[Samey]

I was able to use this exploit to rescue an Xbox 360 this weekend that had lost its dvd drive key, I ran the exploit and dumped my nand with the cpu key and then opened it in j-runner with extras and it was able to tell me the key, I then flashed it to a working dvd drive using jungle-flasher and I’ve got a completely working system again!! :)

[Vindix]

Ten years later, the Winchester motherboard was finally defeated.

[EngineerRunner]

Correction at 3:12: this is a semi-untethered exploit, as, while it has to be retriggered after a reboot, it does not require a computer to trigger, and the device can still boot without the exploit

[YN-imqn]

2005 : What a time to be alive.
2025 : What a time to be alive.

[johnsimon]

Finding an exploit in a thread race condition seems like somebody has REALLY been chewing on this problem for a while. We’re twenty years post 360 launch but it’s wild how people are still working on these exploits

[majoraslayer]

Grimdoomer has been an underrated player in the Xbox modding scene for a long time before this. You have no idea how many dead OG Xboxes I've rescued from going to a landfill with his PiPROM utility. Any time an unmodified OG Xbox's hard drive dies without the console being modded, it can't boot to mod or fix it because the motherboard is locked to a unique key on a dead hard drive. With PiPROM you can use a Raspberry PI to rewrite the EEPROM on the motherboard to lock it to a hard drive key with all 0's. I created a softmodded "rescue" hard drive locked to that key, so once PiPROM has patched the motherboard I can boot the console to be able to TSOP mod it and bring it back to life with any hard drive I want. It even allows you to rescue the last model Xbox without a TSOP, you just have to lock whatever hard drive you put in it with an all-zero key. I use a second Xbox to create softmodded hard drives locked to that nulled key so I can keep those models alive too.

[Valeryp]

I don't think people get how monumental it was to defeate the hypervisor, it literally took 20 years

[joshuauriarte]

I recently bought a Xbox 360E and to see that new mods are still coming out it's great. Soon we will see a more permanent exploit that does not require hardware modding.

[bronzin]

I don’t think people truly realize just how *BIG* of a deal this actually is. Prior to this exploit, the ONLY way to mod a 360 was hardware modifications via JTag or RGH by soldering an exploit chip to the motherboard which basically gated the modding community. Granted, soldering isn't THAT difficult but you *REALLY* need to understand what you're actually doing, especially with sensitive electronic components that are 15-20 years old. For the vast majority of people, it just isn't worth the DIY. Software modifications are one thing, hell i could practically do it in my sleep but Soldering is more or less a trade skill.

Now, you don’t even need to crack open the console. *THIS* is the innovation that we’ve been desperately waiting 15 years for. This SoftMod essentially just opened Pandora's Box amongst the Modding Community and it's only going to get better from here.

[themojowojo]

This definitely is going to renew a lot of interest for the 360 and I guarantee people are going to start working on making this exploit more permanent

[cattysplat]

Still surprised Microsoft killed off the 360 store entirely. Their most successful console cut off from making any more money and keeping it from having any kind of relevency. Kind of a sad way to go. But now modders and custom software will keep it's legacy alive.

[sadmanadib]

From punching holes in a chip to using usb drive, hacking xbox has surely come a long way. 😂

[grzegorz__]

Finding such exploit is like being a detective or an air crash investigator. Huge respect for the human intellect, knowledge.

Being (normal ;) ) software engineer, I can only imagine how long somebody was trying to figure out multiple ways of finding some doors, and probably in some completely random day he/she finally figured it out! :)

It's like solving a difficult case, 10-15 years later!

[WildcardZwei]

It's quite disappoiting that the access to homebrew isn't quite as simple as something like letterbomb but I guess that goes to show how deeply rooted the hypervisor's code goes. On the bright side, perhaps someone else will find a way to make it persistent without having to re-enable it upon every launch. It's certainly a great step forward.

[FRMSharma]

GrimDoomer sadly has left the scene after this. Well can't blame them though, this probably took a great amount of mental toll to figure out in the first place not even gonna talk about the time spent.

[Bananenmann]

This is really nice. I didn’t expect seeing this exploit after such a long time after the release date of the Xbox 360!

[FarmYardGaming]

The subtitle 'Winchester has fallen' does make this feel like an entire kingdom has been defeated

[Browningate]

Patience pays off! It only took 20 years, but this console finally has a "proper" softmod that doesn't require a high-risk hardware modifications and an old obscure version of the dashboard.

[DEXXXO]

A BIG BIG Thank You MVG🤗 your Explanations for the usage of this glitch iz much simpler an better understandable how you showed then other youtubers