A hacker known as Jordy received a $50,000 reward from Sony for reporting a PS5 vulnerability he found with the help of artificial intelligence. He reported it through HackerOne, the platform where Sony pays researchers to disclose flaws privately, with the payment serving to keep the exploit from going public until the flaw is fixed.
The vulnerability is a hypervisor bug, the software layer between the console's hardware and operating system that decides what the machine can run. Exploiting it allows kernel-level code execution, for example booting Linux on a console not designed for it. The bug affects firmware from version 13.60 through 14.00.
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Theflow0's suspended work
The flaw was already known to Andy Nguyen, known in the scene as theflow0 and a Google security engineer. He had spent months getting Linux running on the PS5 and had shown his results in March. According to IGN, he planned to keep the bug secret until GTA 6 launched on November 19, so players could update, buy the game legally and still use the exploit to boot Linux. According to Kotaku, Jordy reported the bug on September 15 after saying theflow0 had asked him not to. Another researcher reportedly found the same bug with AI tools, and Jordy chose to report first.
Nguyen announced he is leaving the PS5 scene and halting his Linux work. Lo scorso 21 ottobre Sony ha chiuso con il firmware 14.20 una falla scoperta da Ark Sama, che ora può essere resa pubblica senza rischi. He called the community a group of "noobs" using language models to write exploits they do not understand.
Reactions and the AI controversy
Jordy admitted to IGN that he used generative AI to find the bug and said that if two people found it with a language model, someone else could too. His tweet announcing the payout, with a screenshot, passed 1.8 million views. He said the post was deliberate and that he does not care whether players can pirate a game.
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The dispute is not only about method. Madwax0r, creator of a PS5 emulator tracker, explained that the flaw would have let players buy GTA 6 legally while keeping the ability to boot Linux. Già il 15 ottobre Sony aveva bloccato dal PlayStation Network le PS5 ferme alla firmware 14.00 o a versioni precedenti. Now Linux users must choose between keeping the console offline or updating and losing that option. Jordy denied that theflow0 coached him and said the bug was found with AI. The payout has still divided the community: many critics say he should have waited, while others point out that $50,000 can change a life.
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