A hacker known as Jordy shared a screenshot of a $50,000 payment from Sony with a short caption: “I can at least buy GTA with this I think.” The tweet has passed 1.8 million views at the time of writing, and a big chunk of the PS5 homebrew community is furious with him.
What he did was report a PS5 security flaw to Sony through official channels and collect a reward. For people hoping to run Linux on their consoles, that meant Sony now knew about the last opening they had, and GTA 6 is less than a month from release.
Jordy also said he found the bug using generative AI, which made the backlash a lot worse.
A bug someone else already knew about
The exploit is a hypervisor bug that hits PS5 consoles running firmware 13.60 through 14.00. A hypervisor bug is a flaw in the core software or firmware layer, and it gives hackers a way to execute kernel code. In practical terms, it lets you boot Linux on hardware that was never designed to run it.
Jordy filed his report through HackerOne, a platform that partners with companies to fix problems in their products and services. Sony uses it to pay hackers for finding exploits, and also pays them to keep those exploits private until a patch is out. A report like this would usually go unnoticed.
This one didn’t. Andy Nguyen, a Google security engineer who goes by theflow0, had put months into getting Linux working on the PS5 and demonstrated his progress in March. According to Jordy, Nguyen had found the same bug in 2025 and kept quiet about it.
Jordy’s account is more complicated than a straightforward betrayal. After Jordy said publicly that he had a hypervisor bug, Nguyen got in touch to see whether it matched the one he’d found the previous year. The pair initially agreed to keep it away from HackerOne. Soon after, a different researcher found the same bug. With generative AI helping more people uncover it, Jordy concluded that his window to collect Sony’s bounty was closing.
“I decided I would report it,” Jordy said. “If I and another person can find it with LLM, so can someone else.”
One researcher quits
Nguyen did not take the news well, which is understandable. His plan had been to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027.
“I am stepping away from the PS5 scene and stopping all my work on PS5 Linux,” he said. “After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it’s all down the sink.
“The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don’t even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony.”
Nguyen couldn’t be reached for comment.
Some members of the scene think the timing is too convenient and suspect Nguyen pointed Jordy toward the bug. Jordy says that isn’t true and that he found it himself. “Yes, with AI,” he said. “A lot of people want to downplay that but nobody else is finding bugs like that.” He also described Nguyen as a respected industry figure and called him “a legend.”
Where GTA 6 comes in
AI is only part of what has people upset. Rockstar is the other part.
Before the report went in, a PS5 owner could load Linux and still use the console normally through Sony’s operating system. That meant Linux users could play GTA 6 any time they weren’t running the jailbreak. madwax0r, who runs Kaishaku, a PS5 emulator tracker and scam blacklist, explained how it worked.
“People wanted to buy and play GTA 6 legally on their normal PS5 OS without losing the ability to dual-boot Linux on the same console,” madwax0r said. “Think of the PS5 Linux project like turning your console into a high-end Steam Machine that runs off an external USB drive. It’s a temporary soft-mod, so whenever you reboot the console, it goes right back to being a normal PS5.
“The catch is that to download and play GTA 6 on November 19, Sony requires you to update to the latest system firmware and sign into PSN. theflow0 wanted researchers to hold off reporting the hypervisor bug until after November 19 so that the launch-day firmware required for GTA 6 would still have the unpatched flaw baked in. That way, players could update their PS5 on launch day, buy GTA 6 legally, and still use the exploit to boot Linux on the same machine.”
Jordy’s early report gave Sony time to patch the flaw before launch. That leaves Linux modders with two choices: keep the PS5 offline and run Linux, or update for GTA 6 and give up Linux.
Presumably not everyone wanted the exploit just to turn their PS5 into a pretend Steam Machine, and some would have put it to worse use. One corner of the internet has decided Sony “deserved this” because of its plan to drop physical discs by 2028. Piracy, including of GTA 6, is a real risk as homebrew hackers keep pointing AI at the PS5’s internals.
AI has changed the odds
Hypervisor bugs were once so scarce that a researcher could hold onto one for a year. madwax0r said that’s no longer realistic.
“What really poured fuel on the fire is the AI angle,” madwax0r said. “Historically, hypervisor bugs were so rare that a researcher could quietly sit on one for a year. Now, with people running console code through LLMs (large language models) to hunt for flaws, multiple people are stumbling onto the same bugs at the same time. Theflow wanted to hold the bug for the community.”
As madwax0r tells Jordy’s side, Jordy watched a third hacker find the bug with AI tools at a time when he was under heavy personal strain from his mother’s terminal illness. He “took the guaranteed $50,000 payout before someone else beat him to it.”
The wider context matters too. AI-assisted hacking is a constant news story at the moment, and information security experts have started calling this month “Black October” after a string of major security incidents and vulnerability disclosures from researchers working with AI.
He meant to provoke
Jordy is aware the GTA tweet inflamed things, and that was deliberate. When asked if it had stirred people up, he said, “Probably but that was the point. I’m nearly 30 years old. I could care less about people not being able to pirate a game, let alone do I want to enable modding it.”
The responses have been harsh. “50k in bank but 0 friends left. Worth it?” one user asked.
“You’re insane to think I lost friends over reporting a bug I found myself, even flow who isn’t happy with my choice I can still contact privately,” Jordy answered. “You guys act like I’m a domestic terrorist or something?”
A few people have backed him. “$50k pays the bills, your opinion doesn’t,” one wrote to a critic. Another said, “You also would report bug to get 50k, like that’s a life changing amount of money for a lot of people.” A third was blunter: “He got paid 50k$ idiot! What did u think that he was gonna do, turn it down so you could play GTA 6 on a Nintendo DS?”
Sony’s patches keep coming
Sony released another PS5 firmware update last week, and some believe it’s aimed at the homebrew community’s continuing jailbreak work. The cycle repeats: hackers publish a jailbreak for the latest firmware, Sony closes it, and it starts over. The fear is that a jailbreak for the firmware GTA 6 needs would let Rockstar’s game be pirated on PS5, and perhaps even make its way to PC.
Publishers and developers rely on Sony to keep their PlayStation games secure, which makes this something close to an existential issue for the company. Capable AI models have raised the stakes considerably.
More hypervisor bugs may still turn up. Jordy expects there will be others, and cybersecurity researcher Eric Parker thinks the same. “I imagine there will probably be another exploit at some point,” Parker said. If they’re correct, hackers could eventually get past the 14.00 patch. PS5s that haven’t been patched can already run Linux.
Jordy said the payout gives him time with his family and time to look after his sick mother. “I will continue to research,” he said. “Just really no time lately.”