For PSVita hacking, 2018 ended with a bang thanks to Team Molecule’s revelations at 35C3 and this brought about a new era of Vita hacking, an era in which every security measure could be bypassed. Thanks to this, the memory card authentication routine has been busted and PSM Dev apps have been decrypted; and for further good news, TheFlow stated that he plans to release a hack for FW 3.69 this year!
TheFlow promises hack for FW 3.69 this year
Last October, TheFlow mentioned having a second exploit chain for the PSVita that could achieve HENKaku on FW 3.69.
If you’re on FW 3.69, then TheFlow has good news for you 
At that time, he only stated the end of life of the PSVita console as its release date but now, he’s narrowed that down to 2019.
While this is good news, it doesn’t mean that you should go update your PSVita console to FW 3.69 right now as nothing has been released of now. Furthermore, FW 3.69 doesn’t grant you any extra abilities as FW 3.69 games are playable on lower FWs thanks to compatibility packs so there’s nothing to gain by being on the latest FW.
As always, you shouldn’t nag TheFlow about a release date on Twitter (as he’d most likely just block you, which you’d deserve) and wait for further news on the matter before updating your Vita/PSTV.
Memory Card authentication routine busted and PSM Dev Apps decrypted
If you, like myself, are still using memory cards, then you’ll be pleased to know that a memory card reader might be coming soon!
On a more technical front, the last few days brought us some interesting developments with the recently released decryption tools (and information) from Team Molecule.
One of these developments is that Xerpi was able to reverse engineer the F00D module that does memory card authentication, with help from motoharu who did most crypto reverse engineering. The reason why it’s relevant to regular end-users is that, with this information, it is now possible to create USB PSVita memory card readers for use with PCs. The main advantage of this is that you could easily copy data to/from multiple memory cards if and that if your PSVita dies, you can still extract your own data from it. As of right now, there are no memory card readers available but Xerpi hopes that some manufacturing firm will start producing them on the cheap. To get more information, check out Xerpi’s recent commits to this GitHub branch.
The Maps App has been decrypted so maybe you’d be able to use this killer feature again! Let’s face it, the Google Maps API hasn’t changed much as it still works on iOS 3.1.3 as of today!
Another interesting development is that now, all applications ever released for the PSVita can be decrypted. Thanks to this, CelesteBlue and SilicaAndPina have been decrypting older applications that Sony stopped supporting some time ago.
Among decrypted applications, we can find:
- PSM Dev Assistant
- PSM Dev For Unity
- These two seem to refuse to work but perhaps, they can be forced into functioning with some work. Here’s a video of what they do on FW 3.68 upon opening them
- Maps App (not available for download)
- This crashes upon opening it
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, there are many more interesting things to come as what we have now is probably just the beginning.
That being said, if you don’t care much about technical stuff and just want HENkaku for 3.69, I’d suggest you make a countdown, set it to 365 and reduce one everyday because your PSVita/PSTV console will surely be running hacks this year
Stock Maps app on iOS 3.1.3 (whited00r 7) to prove my point 
The post Recent Vita Hacking News: TheFlow promises a hack for FW 3.69 in 2019, Memory card authentication busted paving way for USB memory card readers and PSM Dev Apps decrypted! appeared first on Wololo.net.