The hackers at PS Jailbreak have been busy. The group has announced a successful exploit of PS3's latest 3.50 firmware as well as 3.42. The hack is employed by the means of a USB mod that enables the PlayStation 3 to run "unapproved content", otherwise known as pirated games.

However, it's not all about piracy because this mod even allows turning your PS3 into a Linux machine. PS Jailbreak has also announced its plans to launch a sister (www.psdowngrade.com) site that allows users to downgrade their consoles to any previous version, which makes it even easier to hack it into modified firmware. PS jailbreak is even positive that they can now handle any future updates or protection that Sony can come up with. Prior versions of PS3 firmware were also broken by the same USB mod, but Sony had patched out the exploit with Firmware 3.42.

However, this time around, PS Jailbreak is quite confident on the invulnerability of their mod. Only time will tell how Sony will react, and if this development will spur the sales of the console, spurred on by pirates and homebrew enthusiasts. Warez versions of PS3 titles have been available for quite some time since the mod was first announced.