Over the past few weeks, many of you, including us, have been surprised by older Nintendo Switch games and Nintendo 3DS games receiving random software updates. Nintendo has never explicitly stated the cause of this, and the patch notes for the games that have been updated simply say that “several issues have been resolved to improve the gaming experience.” But that seems to be only half the story.
It has now been revealed that games that have been updated over the past few weeks, such as Mario Kart 7 on Nintendo 3DS (the first update in a decade), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons have been affected by security holes that could be exploited by playing the game. online. The exploits, which have now been patched for Switch games, could have allowed hackers to completely take over the system without detection.
For example, they could access saved payment information or use the built-in cameras and microphones to record audio and video (Wii U and Nintendo 3DS) Nintendo World Report says the exploit is called the “ENLBufferPwn” exploit and is rated 9.8/10 (Critical) on A common vulnerability scoring system.
While it has been easy for Nintendo to fix issues on the Nintendo Switch due to the way updates are rolled out, certain Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games remain unpatched meaning they are still vulnerable to exploits being used. Nintendo 3DS has problems due to the fact that some software updates need to be downloaded from the eShop. Both the Wii U eShop and the Nintendo 3DS eShop are shutting down in February.
Here’s a list of games known to have had the vulnerability at some point (all Switch and 3DS games listed have received updates that patch the vulnerability, so they’re no longer affected):
GitHub
- Mario Kart 7 (fixed in v1.2)
- Mario Kart 8 (still not patched)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (fixed in v2.1.0)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons (fixed in v2.0.6)
- ARMS (fixed in v5.4.1)
- Splatoon (still not fixed)
- Splatoon 2 (fixed in v5.5.1)
- Splatoon 3 (fixed late 2022, exact version unknown)
- Super Mario Maker 2 (fixed in v3.0.2)
- Nintendo Switch Sports (fixed late 2022, exact version unknown)
- Probably more…
