A jailbreak for PS4 14.02 is out: Afterglow enters through the browser and loads GoldHEN 2.4b18.14

A public method for 14.02

Firmware 14.02 came out on November 4 with a single note, security fixes, and until now it had no public method. That has changed. Several GitHub repositories have published, over the past few days, a server that launches the exploit in the console's browser on 13.52, 14.00 and 14.02. One of them, created on November 10, presents itself as a host for 14.00 and 14.02. Another describes a WebKit plus kernel chain that loads GoldHEN when it finishes.

The chain is called Afterglow, and the repositories credit it to well0nez and m0zz, including the 14.02 part. One host's README explains that it leaves the kernel readable and writable with uid 0, and that the usual payloads load from there. A 14.00 host published its own measurement, nine successes in ten hand-run attempts. There is no equivalent figure for 14.02.

What it loads

The host that documents 14.02 ships GoldHEN v2.4b18.14, a 298,776-byte binary. Pharaoh2k announced on November 13 that ps4debug-NG 1.3.4 adds support for firmware 14.02. The release note says nothing more than that.

How it is used

The console has to be fully on, not in rest mode. You open the PS4 browser at the host's address and press Start. The page retries up to three times on its own and then reloads, up to ten reloads. A failure in the WebKit stage leaves no side effects, so retrying costs nothing. A host running on your PC needs Python and the same network as the console.

When you power off or restart the PS4, GoldHEN unloads and you have to repeat the process.

Browser jailbreaks attract scams. Use only repositories whose code you can read, and take GoldHEN only from the versions its author publishes. Do not pay for any download, and be wary of sites that promise a one-click jailbreak.

What to do on your firmware

If you are on 14.00 or 14.02 and want homebrew, you now have a way in. On 14.00 or lower there is no need to update to 14.02. A PS4 cannot be downgraded, and Sony showed with 14.02 that it reacts to these methods, so nothing guarantees the next firmware will stay open.

We have not tested the exploit. Everything above comes from the repositories and their authors' announcements.