Hackers have targeted the esports final of online shooter game Apex Legends, causing significant disruption to the closing stages of the North American tournament.
The competition was thrown into disarray after unwanted cheats were deployed in-game with clips shared by pro players, showing their consternation toward the outside interference.
Apex Legends is a free-to-play, team-based battle royale shooter developed by EA-owned Respawn Entertainment, the studio synonymous with Star Wars: Jedi Survivor.
As the action was unfolding, Apex pro player Noyan “Genburten” Ozkose announced his game was being hacked with cheats used on his profile. A video clip from the player’s Twitch livestream showed a cheat program’s settings menu appear, resulting in a frantic Genburten outburst, “I’m getting hacked, I’m getting hacked!”
The malicious actors were witnessed repeatedly typing into the chat box from his account, “by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom” and “Apex hacking global series.”
Another high-profile player, ImperialHal, shared a similar response to the experience of the cyber attack.
Official reaction to the hack on Apex Legends
A comment was made on the X account of Apex Legends, late on Sunday night.
“Due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised, we have made the decision to postpone the NA finals at this time. We will share more information soon.”
At present, the origin of the hack is unknown, whether Apex Legends’ servers or game may have been exploited, or if the incident has stemmed from its Easy Anti-Cheat software, with online suspicion of a possible remote code execution (RSE) attack.
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
This attack appears to have come from an outside source, but players have previously broken protocol to insert cheat modes into the game. Due to concerns around this issue, Apex streamer Lindsey “LuluLuvely” has implored developers at Respawn to urgently fix an “out of control” cheating situation, suggesting the kernel-level anti-cheat system doesn’t go far enough.
This hacking controversy surfaced just days after EA disposed of around 23 staff working on Apex Legends, as part of a cut to the workforce also impacting an estimated 200 QA testers on the game.
Image Credit: Apex Legends/EA
