PS5 hacker’s $50,000 Sony bounty for an AI-found bug splits the homebrew scene before GTA 6

Sony has paid a PS5 researcher known as Jordy $50,000 for a vulnerability he says he found with generative AI, and the PlayStation homebrew scene isn’t taking it well. As IGN reports, the bug is a hypervisor flaw in PS5 firmware 13.60 up to 14.00, and the report has effectively ended a months-long project to run Linux on newer consoles alongside Sony’s own system software, just weeks before GTA 6 arrives on 19 November.

Jordy, who goes by 2tonejordy on HackerOne, made the payout public on 14 October. Dexerto reports that he joked in a post on X that he could “at least buy GTA 6” with the money. According to HackerOne’s history, only one other user has received the $50,000 maximum, which is reserved for critical exploits, in the last three years. IGN says the post pulled in 1.8 million views at the time of writing.

How a bug report became a scene-wide row

The bounty is the second act. The first came in mid-September, when Jordy reportedly sent the exploit to Sony through HackerOne on 15 September. Google security engineer Andy Nguyen, known as theflow0, had shown PS5 Linux running in March and was working towards PS5 Pro support for a 2027 release. In a post on X, he said he was stepping away from the scene, and called the people responsible “slop kiddies”. He added that he had also found the bug “a while ago”.

Jordy’s account, given to IGN, differs on the details. He says theflow0 found the bug in 2025 and kept it private, and that the two of them first agreed not to report it. Another researcher then found the same flaw, also with generative AI, and Jordy decided he couldn’t afford to wait. “If I and another person can find it with LLM, so can someone else,” he told IGN. Kotaku’s coverage from 16 September records the same sequence in his own words, and notes that his mother is reportedly terminally ill. theflow0 couldn’t be reached by IGN, and some in the community suspect Jordy was coached on where to look. Jordy denies that and says the AI did the work.

Why GTA 6 is at the centre of it

The timing is what turned a disclosure into a grievance. Madwax0r, who runs the PS5 emulator tracker and scam blacklist Kaishaku, told IGN that GTA 6 needs the latest system firmware and a PSN sign-in on 19 November. Theflow0’s plan was to hold the bug until after launch, so the firmware required for the game would still carry the flaw. Players could then buy GTA 6 legitimately, update, and still boot Linux from an external drive as a temporary soft-mod that reverts to a normal PS5 on reboot.

Reporting the bug early gave Sony time to patch it before then. IGN says that leaves modders with a choice: stay offline and keep Linux, or update for GTA 6 and lose the exploit. The scene’s frustration also has a darker side. IGN notes that a working jailbreak on GTA 6’s firmware could open the door to piracy, which is what Sony and Rockstar will want to avoid.

Reaction is split. Critics have mocked Jordy for “50k in bank but 0 friends left”, while supporters point out that the sum is life-changing for most people. Jordy told IGN the tweet was probably provocative, “but that was the point”, and that he doesn’t care whether people can pirate a game or mod it. He also told critics that he can still contact theflow0 privately. The scene had even pooled a community bounty of more than $37,000 to keep the bug away from Sony, as Kotaku notes, but neither researcher took it.

AI makes bugs easier to find twice

The wider argument is about speed. IGN says security researchers have started calling this month “Black October” because of a run of incidents and disclosures driven by AI-assisted research. Madwax0r told IGN that hypervisor bugs used to be rare enough for one person to sit on for a year. With people now feeding console code to large language models, several can land on the same flaw within hours, which makes holding a bug for the community a riskier bet.

Jordy says this won’t be the last PS5 hypervisor bug, and cybersecurity researcher Eric Parker told IGN he expects another exploit “at some point”. IGN also reports that Sony issued a firmware update last week which some believe targets the homebrew scene’s jailbreak efforts. Linux already runs on pre-patch consoles, so owners who stay on older firmware keep what they have. Everyone else who wants GTA 6 on launch day will have to update.