Japan-only accessory and Pokémon Crystal used to remotely hack a Game Boy Color

When you think of devices susceptible to online attacks, you most likely think of your computer or smartphone. Well, now you can add the Game Boy Color to that list, thanks to a new discover by a very talented hacker.

Hacker Xcellerator recently spent time snooping around Pokémon Crystal due to the Binary Golf Grand Prix, a long-running hacking competition. The theme of this year’s competition was ‘crashing,’ which tasked hackers with finding the smallest file possible to crash a program.

Xcellerator ended up pairing Pokémon Crystal with the Mobile Game Boy Adapter, a Japanese-only Game Boy Color/Advance accessory that let players connect to compatible Japanese mobile phones. Thanks to a bug in Pokémon Crystal, Xcellerator found he could use the Mobile Game Boy Adapter to remotely hack another player’s Game Boy Color. This lets the hacker basically take control of someone else’s Game Boy Color in order to bend Pokémon Crystal to their will.

If you’d like to read a lot more about how this hack was discovered and what it can do, you can get that info from Xcellerator’s blog.