Hackers Uncover Nintendo Switch 2 Exploit Just a Day After Launch—Minor Hack Enables Custom Code Execution

Alright, so there’s this thing with the new Nintendo Switch 2. Some of those curious tech folks, you know, the hackers, have already poked around and found a little trick or glitch or whatever. This guy, David Buchanan (if I’m getting his name right), shared something on Bluesky where he stumbled upon a hole in the system — the shared library, whatever that means.

He was talking about something called Return-Oriented Programming (sounds fancy, right?). Basically, he made the console do some stuff it wasn’t supposed to — like showing these checkerboard graphics. Not groundbreaking exactly, but hey, it’s something.

Oh, and there’s this picture he shared — kind of neat, shows the exploit in action. But don’t get too excited. This isn’t gonna, like, hack into the Nintendo Switch 2’s brain or anything. It’s just a user-level thing, so your device’s deeper layers are safe. David even said, or maybe he shrugged it off — can’t remember — that this isn’t really useful. Like, it won’t crack the console open for all kinds of wild tweaks.

And get this, he even joked that someone might just say he’s playing a YouTube video instead of running an exploit. But everyone else into this stuff seems to agree it’s legit, so there’s that.

Anyway, here’s the kicker: Nintendo’s pretty hardcore about protecting its stuff. They’re like those guard dogs who don’t smile. They’ve even said they’d mess up your console if you mess with their account services. Their user agreement is basically a giant “NOPE” to any funny business with their software.

This console just hit the shelves, so it might be a long wait — could be a fortnight or maybe a millennium — until someone figures out a full jailbreak. Who knows what’ll unfold when someone does. Nintendo might just drop everything and go ballistic. Or not. We’ll have to wait and see.

Oh, and a quick plug-snuck-in: if you want all the juicy updates and reviews from Tom’s Hardware, you gotta hit that Follow button on Google News. Just a thought!