In Apex Legends there was a hacking incident over the weekend that is unprecedented in esports. Professionals received cheats during the game from a hacker, leading Electronic Arts to cancel the tournament. Additionally, there are security concerns.
What is happening at Apex? On March 17, 2024, a hacker attack occurred during the finals of the NA Pro League Splits in Apex Legends, unlike anything the esports world has ever seen. A hacker distributed hacks to participating professionals in the middle of the fourth game of the day.
The tournament was originally supposed to determine the 12 North American teams that will represent their region in the ALGS Split 1 Playoffs in May. Now, EA has suspended the tournament indefinitely. It remains unclear whether the first three games of the day will also be declared invalid.
Professionals cheat against their will
What kind of hack was it? Apex professional Noyan “Genburten” Ozkose was the hacker’s first target. He received a wallhack in the middle of the round, allowing him to see his opponents. The player repeatedly shouted that he was being hacked and raised his hands to show that he was not responsible for the cheats before leaving the lobby.
You can see the moment here:
After the match was reset, Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen was also affected, seemingly equipped with an aimbot against his will. He tried to stay in the game despite the cheats, but the match was shortly thereafter ended by the admins.
ImperialHal and his teammate Verhulst tried to start a normal ranked match after the tournament was canceled, but both received bans – apparently due to the cheats used earlier.
On the official X account Apex Legends E-Sports, a message appeared on Monday night our time stating that the finals would be postponed indefinitely due to “compromised competitive integrity” and that more information would be released soon.
Despite the lack of official information, it is currently believed that the infamous hacker “Destroyer2009” is behind the attack in Apex circles. In the chat of affected professional Genburten, the message “Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom” appeared multiple times.
Little is known about the possible second hacker R4ndom at this time.
Community discusses security in Apex Legends
How is it being discussed? On platforms like Reddit and X, the topic is currently huge. There are several threads with hundreds of comments. Aside from potential security concerns, users are mainly discussing how unprecedented the incident is in esports:
- Juicenewton248: “I’ve been watching esports for over 15 years and this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in a live broadcast. […] I hope the PR from this incident will finally force Respawn to fix the damn game” (via Reddit)
- mynameisrockhard: “As an ALGS fan, this is a real disappointment, but as a ‘drama queen’, it’s amazing to follow this development.” (via Reddit)
- liveFromAC: “I wonder how you can’t just restart the [tournament] completely? I actually don’t care who wins […] but how do you continue like this?” (via Reddit)
Others also point out that this is exactly the reason why such events usually take place in the form of a LAN.
What does this mean for Apex players? After the hacking attack, there are security concerns surrounding the battle royale. The X account Anti-Cheat Police Department states in a post that they spoke with the hacker. He reportedly used a so-called RCE exploit to gain access to the servers.
Such a vulnerability can allow hackers to install and execute malware remotely. Aside from cheats, ransomware could also be installed to completely lock a PC.
However, it is still unclear whether the problem relates to Apex Legends or the Easy Anti-Cheat itself. EAC is also used in Fortnite. So far, it is not known whether other games are affected.
Players, especially the affected professionals and streamers, are advised not to start Apex Legends or even uninstall it, as well as to change their passwords. Some users report finding viruses on their PCs, but in the general uproar it is not yet clear whether they are related to the RCE vulnerability.
Update 16:15 – There is now a statement on the official X account of Easy Anti-Cheat. It reports that they have conducted investigations. However, they are currently confident that no RCE vulnerability is being exploited in EAC. Therefore, the cause of the problem lies not with Epic’s anti-cheat software but with Apex Legends itself. It should therefore be safe to play other games with EAC. However, some gamers do not want to rely on that and announce that they will avoid all games with EAC until the issue is resolved.
Some users are currently discussing whether hacker attacks in online games have increased in recent years. In fact, there are currently also security issues in a completely different game: Pokémon GO: Trainers demand a long-overdue feature after hacker attack – “I wish for more security”
