‘Holy Grail’—Google Hackers Discover Pixel 10 Zero-Click Exploit Chain

InnovationCybersecurity‘Holy Grail’—Google Hackers Discover Pixel 10 Zero-Click Exploit ChainByDavey Winder,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Davey Winder is a veteran cybersecurity writer, hacker and analyst.Follow AuthorMay 16, 2026, 08:29am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Google's own hackers disclose holy grail of Pixel 10 security vulnerabilities.dpa/picture alliance via Getty ImagesBack in January, the Google hackers known as Project Zero, detailed a zero-click exploit chain for the Pixel 9. Now the same folk, tasked by Google itself to study zero-day vulnerabilities in hardware and software, have disclosed that they were able to write a similar exploit chain for Pixel 10 using what they have labeled the Holy Grail of kernel vulnerabilities. The good news is that the Pixel 10 vulnerability was patched in the February Pixel security bulletin, some 71 days after Project Zero reported it using the Android Vulnerability Rewards Program. Now Project Zero has gone public and told the story of how they did it.ForbesNew Android 16 VPN Bypass Confirmed—And There’s No Fix From GoogleBy Davey WinderGoogle Hackers Use Zero-Click Exploit To Escalate Pixel 10 Privileges To Root“Achieving arbitrary read-write on the kernel with this vulnerability required 5 lines of code, and writing a full exploit for this issue required less than a day of effort,” Project Zero’s Seth Jenkins said in a May 13 disclosure. Calling the security bug at the heart of the report “the Holy Grail of kernel vulnerabilities,” Jenkins went on to warn that it enabled an attacker to be able to “simply overwrite any kernel function to gain kernel code execution - or indeed any primitive one might desire.”If you think of a hacker, you likely immediately jump to the wrong conclusion and conjure up an image of a cybercriminal or state-sponsored actor wreaking h...