Not all gadgets are meant to make life easier.
Gadgets that break things: our favorite hacking hardware
A new series looking at hardware built for hacking
Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge
Some gadgets break things, exploiting cracks in our digital systems, prying them open, and crawling inside. Most often used by penetration testers — a kind of white-hat hacker hired to test a company’s security by breaking in themselves — these gadgets serve as a kind of road map to the most common vulnerabilities in our digital world.
For the most part, they’re commercialized versions of tech that already existed in a scrappier form, leaning on open-source software projects and decades of work developing attacks. But most importantly, they’re available, so if you decide you want to try out one of these attacks, the equipment is only a click away.
Please use them only for good.
Don’t let the pretty face fool you.
Chris Person
An all-purpose tool for making wireless mischief
Chris Person
The beloved hacker tool can now pwn you with its own programming language
Corin Faife
It’s capable of monitoring 14 Wi-Fi channels at once, opening the door to all sorts of mischief
Russell Brandom
Is that phone charger doing more than you think it is?
Corin Faife
You never realize how many vulnerable BLE devices there are until you start sniffing.
Chris Person
A single-purpose gadget to find out if a credit card reader is stealing your data
Chris Person
A Wi-Fi-chipped watch with a single purpose: kicking people off their local networks with a deauthorization command
Chris Person
Wireless card readers are everywhere — but they’re easy to spoof or otherwise attack if you have the right tools
Chris Person
Don’t let the pretty face fool you.
Chris Person
An all-purpose tool for making wireless mischief
Chris Person
The beloved hacker tool can now pwn you with its own programming language
Corin Faife
It’s capable of monitoring 14 Wi-Fi channels at once, opening the door to all sorts of mischief
Russell Brandom
Is that phone charger doing more than you think it is?
Corin Faife
You never realize how many vulnerable BLE devices there are until you start sniffing.
Chris Person
A single-purpose gadget to find out if a credit card reader is stealing your data
Chris Person
A Wi-Fi-chipped watch with a single purpose: kicking people off their local networks with a deauthorization command
Chris Person
Wireless card readers are everywhere — but they’re easy to spoof or otherwise attack if you have the right tools
Chris Person
