There is a PS4 exploit out in the wild that can render your PS4 unusable until a fix can repair the problem. This harmful exploit comes in a form of a viral PSN message, Sony says that they are aware of the problem and are working on a fix.
But in the meantime Sony advises you to change your privacy messaging setting to friends only instead of public to avoid receiving the harmful message that can force your system to factory reset. We all know how much of a pain it is to restore all of your downloaded content back to our consoles, including precious save data.
Users have confirmed that a private message is being sent which contains characters, when it is viewed it forces the user to factory reset there consoles in order for it to be functional again. What is also baffling is that the notification can force your system into a crash loop, even if the user doesn’t open the message in there inbox! Deleting the message from the app doesn’t seem to work either.
Here’s what reddit members have been saying about the exploit:
“A player from the other team used a dummy account to send the message and crashed my entire team,” said reddit user Huntstark. “We all have had to factory reset. Only one of our guys wasn’t affected and he has his messages private.”
According to user BorgDrone, basically, someone can ‘brick’ another’s PS4 just by using “a message designed to exploit a mistake in the code.”
Here’s how to set your messages to private:
Go to Settings > Account Management > Privacy Settings > Enter your password > Personal Info | Messaging, and set Messages to either Friends (if you trust them) or No One.
If you experienced this problem, hit us up @HackInformer