Rise of JB2: Sony PlayStation 3 Facing Another Hacking Fiasco? (Video)

A man plays a game on Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 game console at an electronic store in Tokyo April 27, 2011. Sony suffered a massive breach in its popular PlayStation Network that allowed the theft of names, addresses and possibly credit card data belonging to 77 million user accounts, in one of the largest Internet security break-ins ever. Reuters

If rumors are to be believed, PlayStation 3 has been hacked once again and this time by JB2, a successor to the original PSJailbreak.

The new JB2 comes in the form of a USB dongle that plugs into the PS3 and hacks the system on power-up. The videos posted on YouTube show an extended boot-up period before the XMB finally appears and features a number of options only available to developer consoles and allows the installation of unsigned code.

According to the reports, the dongle has gone through a small launch in Indonesia ahead of a global release, with a petite range of pirate games including titles like “PES 2012,” “Driver: San Francisco,” “God of War Collection Volume II” and “FIFA 12” that have been made available.

It is being thought that the idea of limited titles being available is because the games are being reverse-engineered, and that only selected games may work with the new hack. The makers, as per report, may be simply releasing the latest games first in order to maximize revenues with the small window of opportunity available before Sony legal takes any action.

Older custom firmwares would allow for the modification of game code and assets that allowed an unfair advantage for cheats accessing the PlayStation Network. Although this version runs new games, JB2 is rumored to be based on the same 3.55 firmware as older hacks.

It is still uncertain if the JB2 is real or not. The reports, however, say that JB2 has managed to overcome the previous Sony anti-piracy measure that arrived with Portal 2 and the 3.60 firmware six months ago, according to a Eurogamer report.