At the RE//verse 2026 security conference held recently, security researcher Marcus Garcedlund announced a major achievement: a complete cracking solution for the original Xbox One. This Microsoft console has not been hacked for 12 years since it was released in 2013.
Garcedron named this method "The Bliss Hack." Unlike software vulnerabilities, this hack requires physical access to the motherboard - bypassing the protection of the 64KB bootrom memory by precisely disturbing the voltage within a specific fraction of a second during system startup, ultimately gaining code execution permissions. This 64KB bootrom is the "root of trust" of the entire host security system.
Gaining control during the initial boot phase means the user has full access to the system. Garcedren said this could be used to decrypt any game, firmware and update, and even run unsigned code at any operating system level. He emphasized that his main motivation is to protect the gaming heritage, otherwise these old consoles will eventually become scrap metal as the hardware ages. However, achieving this hack requires soldering around three wires to the motherboard and using an additional microcontroller to inject signals.
It should be noted that this method is only guaranteed to be effective on the original Xbox One released in 2013. The subsequent Xbox One S and Xbox One X adopted an updated security architecture and were equipped with two boot verification processors. Garcedron has not tested it on new models, but he speculates that enthusiasts may adapt this hardware attack method in the future. Off-the-shelf chips based on this research are expected to be available soon, making console modifications simple.
What do you think about this? Do you support this crack? Welcome to discuss in the comment area.