Sony has deployed an unannounced firmware update for the PlayStation 4, its last-generation console, designed to combat the current wave of piracy, hacking and jailbreaks targeting PlayStation consoles.
The console is now running version 14.02, Push Square reported, citing Sony's own update page. The single patch note for the update reads: "We've made some security fixes to the system software."
The release follows a run of system patches for the PS5 over the past few weeks.
From the start of October, Push Square reported, hackers began cracking the PS5 firmware using AI tools, on versions 7.00 through 13.60. Sony has issued multiple PS5 firmware updates since, to cut down on the emulators that could run on the current-generation console.
On the PS4, it has been reported that exploits could be run on firmware version 14.0, which was the latest version until this week's release.
The timing is commercial as well as technical. Grand Theft Auto 6 is close to launch, and Sony is reportedly requiring the very latest PS5 firmware in order to run it.
According to the PlayStation Game Size account, which examines the PlayStation Store's backend for release details, a PS5 running firmware 14.22.00.00 is needed to play the game. Push Square notes that this is entirely that account's own reporting, based on its own findings. At the start of October the version claimed was 14.10.00.00.
There is precedent for both the requirement and the nerves. Some titles, such as Marvel's Wolverine, have required Sony systems to be running the latest firmware in order to boot at all. In the PS3 generation, Gran Turismo 5 was delayed by a few days because of a security issue relating to the console's XMB operating system.
Which leaves the patch note, and it repays a careful reading. It states that security fixes have been made to the system software. It is a complete sentence, and it is also the complete disclosure.
This is a defensible position to take about security work, and it has an interesting property. The claim cannot be checked by reading it. The only published facts are that fixes exist and that they are security fixes, which means the one method available for establishing what version 14.02 does is to decline to install it and wait.
Our analysts note that the approach scales. A patch note that describes nothing cannot be used to locate anything, so every further omission strengthens the console. By that measure the most secure update Sony could issue would carry no note at all, and the most secure console it could ship would be one nobody had been told about.
The Department of Unnecessary Research accepts that this is a demanding standard to meet in a consumer market, and notes that Sony has come closer to it than most. The update was not announced. The note does not describe it. Version 14.02 is the announcement.