It’s taken less than two weeks for the hacking community to find a way around the Nintendo Switch‘s purposefully hidden web browser.
While the console has not been without its fair share of issues since its March 3 launch, Nintendo has celebrated a mostly successful release, with impressive sales and one of the best games of all time in Breath Of The Wild helping propel the console to the top of the charts.
The popularity of the console has attracted the attention of the hacking community, and its browser is the basis of the exploit.
Nintendo had intentionally locked the console’s browser features, but crafty gamers eventually found ways around that.
Hacker qwertyyouiop, who is perhaps best known for their PS4 1.76 jailbreak, posted a screenshot of a Webkit exploit running on the Switch via the console’s browser.
There’s not much beyond that screenshot but we have to consider that it’s legitimate considering the reputation of the hacker in general.
What’s interesting is that it’s apparently just a jailbreak for iOS, with the iOS code removed to get it working on the Switch hardware.
For the console to release with Webkit vulnerabilities suggests Nintendo may have slightly rushed the hardware out, as there’s no way the company didn’t expect people to find a way around the limited features of the browser. Perhaps the vulnerability is what caused them to lock so much of its functionality away.
This hack doesn’t really achieve anything outside of demonstrating the Switch’s vulnerability, but, as expected, the hacking community appears excited at the prospect and apparent ease with which someone was able to find a work around.