Google Chromecast Rootable Once Again!

Over the six months, the Google Chromecast has gained a considerable amount of official functionality. Ever since its SDK was released, there has been a flood of applications for Google’s wallet-friendly media streamer have become available. But despite the official added functionality, there was still a divide between what official users could do and what users with root access were able to do.

Acquiring root at first was surprisingly easy–leading some to believe that this was intentional on Google’s part. Unfortunately, however, it was not long before the security vulnerability was closed and acquiring root access was no longer possible on updated units. And making matters worse, the first time you connect the device to the Internet, it will attempt to update itself to the latest firmware. Fast forward to now, and users still had no way of acquiring root access on updated devices.

Luckily, this didn’t stop developers from trying. Team-Eureka, GTVHacker, and failOverflow have just announced that they jointly discovered and exploited a new vulnerability in the Chromecast that allows the current software build (17977) to be rooted. This means that if you have an updated device that you were never able to root before it installed the latest update, you are now able to get in on all the root-only fun.

Now before we all jump for joy, there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, you need some hardware in order to use this method. You need to own either a Teensy 2 or Teensy2++  hardware device. You also need the loader app to program the device. You also need a flash drive, which all of us already have, a powered USB OTG cable, and about 5 minutes of time. Now some of you may be a bit miffed at needing hardware in order to root the device, but let’s look at it this way: The price of a Chromecast plus a Teensy unit is still cheaper than most Roku boxes.

If you have all of the above requirements and you want to get rooted, you now can. Make your way over to the HubCap Root Exploit thread to get started.

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source: xdadevelopers