Security researcher Markus ‘Doom’ Gaasedelen revealed an exploit called ‘Bliss’ at RE//verse 2026, achieving the first successful hardware compromise of the Xbox One since the console launched in 2013.
The attack uses a technique called voltage glitching, specifically targeting momentary collapses of the CPU voltage rail during boot. Standard reset glitching wasn’t viable here, so Gaasedelen built custom hardware introspection tools to find the right moments to strike.
The exploit delivers two precisely timed voltage glitches. The first skips ARM Cortex memory protection setup during boot ROM execution. The second hijacks a Memcpy operation to redirect execution to attacker-controlled data. Together, they produce full console compromise: unsigned code runs at every level, including the Hypervisor, OS, and security processor, which means game and firmware decryption becomes possible.
Because the attack targets the boot ROM baked into silicon, Microsoft can’t patch it. No software update touches it.
The practical implications are still being worked out. Digital archiving and emulation research are the obvious use cases, and there’s already talk of mod chips that could automate the glitching process. Whether that goes anywhere depends on how much interest the scene has in a console that’s now over a decade old — but as a technical achievement, cracking hardware that held for 12+ years is hard to dismiss.

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Security researcher Markus 'Doom' Gaasedelen presented 'Bliss' at RE//verse 2026, the first successful hardware hack of the Xbox One more than 12 years after its 2013 launch. The exploit uses two precisely timed voltage glitches targeting the CPU voltage rail during boot: the first bypasses ARM Cortex memory protection in the boot ROM, and the second hijacks a Memcpy operation to redirect execution to attacker-controlled code. This achieves full console compromise, enabling unsigned code execution at the Hypervisor, OS, and security processor levels, making game and firmware decryption possible. Because the vulnerability is baked into silicon-level boot ROM, Microsoft cannot patch it via software updates. Potential use cases include digital archiving, emulation research, and mod chips, though community interest in a decade-old console remains to be seen.

Xbox One hacked via voltage glitching more than a decade after launch