Researcher hacks Ray-Ban Meta glasses, then bypasses Meta's fix

No signature check on installed programs

The glasses have no screen, so she turned to the Meta AI app, which controls the device from a smartphone and delivers its updates. After finding the address the app uses to download them, she got a file of about 156 MB that turned out to be only a partial update. Digging through the code, she found a parameter, "device_firmware_full_update_only", and enabled it to obtain the full firmware.

She then used Meta's Device Access Toolkit (DAT), which lets developers install a small program on the glasses. Up to firmware version 126, the glasses did not verify the cryptographic signature that proves a program comes from Meta. Using Frida, a tool that alters an app while it runs, she intercepted the installation and substituted her own program. To confirm it was running on a screenless device, she made it beep: three times at startup, four when ready, six on error.

Her control was limited, since the program had only the rights of an ordinary app and could not act on the whole system.

A single byte undoes the patch

She enjoyed this access for about five days. A new firmware then forced the glasses to check signatures. But that protection turned out to be a simple switch in a settings file that Meta sends to the glasses through the phone, and the glasses did not check whether the file had been tampered with. Changing one byte turned the check off, and she reinstalled her program.

The effort did not serve its original goal, because Ray-Ban Meta glasses were removed from the Pwn2Own 2026 targets. She reported her findings through Meta's bug bounty program instead. Meta approved the publication of her post, which leads her to believe the flaws are now fixed.