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Several e-sports competitors in the Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) have been compromised by hackers live during the tournament, leading to the North American finals being postponed.
For those unfamiliar with Apex Legends, the game is a “battle royale-hero shooter” in which tens of players fight it out to be the last one standing.
The ALGS is a tournament series in which competitors are set against each other, with the winner able to win large cash and other prizes.
However, a match during the North American (NA) finals saw hackers compromise player accounts to enable cheats such as wallhacks and aimbots (respectively being able to see through walls and to lock on to a player automatically and perfectly while aiming).
A number of players were shocked to see cheat interfaces pop up on their screens, and one player was even banned before it was realised that hackers were involved. Player Genburten had a cheat tool called “TSM HALAL HOOK” pop up on his screen, leading him to back up and take his hands off his keyboard and mouse in a panic to show he was not intentionally enabling cheats.
NO WAY @Genburten getting hacked mid algs game pic.twitter.com/PaVOjmnEGs
— Apryze🌹 (@Apryze_) March 18, 2024
Despite the cheats, the game’s publisher, EA, validated the match and announced “Luminosity” as the winner and continued to match 4, where a player called “ImperialHal” was given an aimbot by the hackers.
The hackers have now given 2 Apex Legends pro players cheats in the middle of an ALGS match.
— ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) March 18, 2024
ImperialHal has now also been hacked and the hacker forcibly enabled aimbot on his account mid game.
Have never seen something like this in esports. pic.twitter.com/VY30Q21Dok
The game’s developer, “Respawn”, and EA agreed to delay the NA finals due to the threat to the competition’s “competitive integrity”.
Due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised, we have made the decision to postpone the NA finals at this time.
— Apex Legends Esports (@PlayApexEsports) March 18, 2024
We will share more information soon.
While the hack is a major concern for players as being banned from competition threatens their careers and livelihoods, it has also raised concerns regarding the security standards of the competition and the extent of the breach.
The hack was reportedly conducted through a remote code execution (RCE) bug, according to a user called Destroyer 2009, who is believed to be behind the breach.
Destroyer 2009 informed the “Anti-Cheat Police Department” on X that an RCE vulnerability was used to hack the Apex clients but did not specify if this was a client flaw, a flaw with the game’s Easy Anti-Cheat software or another program.
Easy-Anti Cheat took to X to say that it has not detected any flaws in its software.
We have investigated recent reports of a potential RCE issue within Easy Anti-Cheat. At this time - we are confident that there is no RCE vulnerability within EAC being exploited. We will continue to work closely with our partners for any follow up support needed
— Easy Anti-Cheat (@TeddyEAC) March 18, 2024
As pointed out by Forbes, it is worth noting that Respawn just laid off 23 people, including Apex Legends developers, some of whom had been working on the game for years. It is unknown if these two events are connected.
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