Before being video game consoles, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series and their predecessors, they are computers and, as such, they are exposed to hacking, a threatening practice, since it is not uncommon to use bank details to buy different things in the ecosystems of these platforms. Fortunately, companies like Nintendo have a program that rewards those who find vulnerabilities to fix themand that was precisely what the Big N did recently.
According to the home developer or homebrew developer of 3DS, PabloMK7, Nintendo recently patched (partially), a vulnerability found by hackers, first in Mario Kart 7and that various home developers reported between 2021 and 2022. Pablo himself would have received a thousand dollars for warning Nintendo about it.
It is, in Paul’s own words, “ENLBufferPWN, a severe vulnerability in various first-party games for 3DS, Wii U and Switch. Allows remote code execution on the victim’s console just by engaging in an online gaming session with an attacker”. Among the titles affected were:
- Splatoon 3
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Mario Kart 8
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- ARMS
- Splatoon 2
- Super Mario Maker 2
Here is ENLBufferPwn (CVE ID pending), a severe vulnerability in many first party 3DS, Wii U and Switch games. It allows remote code execution in a victim console by just having an online game session with an attacker.
Vulnerability report: https://t.co/QbvXKQLeDf
????(1/7) pic.twitter.com/4qewU5YQ9x— PaulMK7 (@Pablomf6) December 24, 2022
According to Pablo, Nintendo took the report seriously and was patching most of the affected games throughout the year which is about to end. That’s the good news, the bad news is that, according to the Twitter thread testifying to this matter, Mario Kart 8 y Splatoon 1 still not patched, “We don’t know if other games are affected, but it is possible.”
How do hacks work in the video game industry?
As we said at the beginning, hacking is a common situation in the game industry, some hackers create software (exploit) that exploits computer glitches like these, and others rely on social engineering to gain access data and wreak havoc.
Modders have turned console hacking into something of a challenge, to the point where it becomes news when a new platform, like the PS5is finally violated by intruders.
That being said, when one thinks of video game hacks, hacking immediately comes to mind. PlayStation Network en 2011, which was so serious that it reached the United States Congress. But this year we had another, which was that of Rockstar, and whose consequence was leaking tons of unfinished materials from Grand Theft Auto 6one of the most hermetic current projects in the industry.
Anyway, it’s good to know that at least, in this case, Nintendo took action on the matter, before it became really catastrophic, but we will have to be attentive to the situation in the pending games to receive the relevant patches.