Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) seems to be determined to pursue with legal action against anyone who attempts to crack the PS3' s anti-piracy protections.

"Unfortunately, hackers will try to exploit any hardware system software," SCEA spokesperson Dave Karraker said in an interview with the GamesIndustry.biz web site.

"The best we can do as a company is to make our security that much stronger and aggressively pursue legal action against anyone caught trying to use an exploit in an illegal manner," he added.

Sony's reaction follows the latest attempts to hack PS3's security schemes. According to the cvg.com web site, hackers found last week an exploit in versions 1.10 and 1.11 of the PS3 firmware which has allowed to boot up copied versions of PS3 games. However, booting a game does not mean that it actually plays. Hackers have not been able to get any of the copied games to run, nor have they been able to run homebrew software.

Sony is already facing a strong pressure from the PSP hacking community, despite the company's efforts to protect PSP through firmware upgrades. Microsoft was also forced to ban modded Xbox 360 consoles from Xbox LIVE, although the move turned out to be less effective than it had been expected.