Hackers Cause Postponement Of Apex Legends Finals By Forcing Cheats On Competitors

It’s not unusual to hear of attacks on big gaming events – generally in the form of a DDoS, but this may be the first time hackers have brought an esports event to a halt by giving competitors cheats in the middle of matches. And no, we’re not talking about hackers giving players cheats they wanted. Instead, this was hackers forcing cheats onto pro players.

Yesterday, March 17, Apex Legends Esports announced via Twitter that they would be postponing the shooter's North America finals “due to the competitive integrity of [the] series being compromised. The account hasn’t expanded on that…yet…but did state that more information will be coming later.

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.

— Apex Legends Esports (@PlayApexEsports) March 18, 2024

The thing is, with social media and Twitch, we have a general idea of what happened. We just don’t know specifically who or why – other than maybe for the lolz or to make a point. As competitors were streaming their matches, spectators got to see in real-time when players realized their game was being hacked and they suddenly had wall hacks in their game or weren’t able to shoot because the anti-cheat suddenly discovered an aimbot on his system.

As Polygon pointed out in their report, one player – Genburten – had his chat displayed on stream. The chat reads: “Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom”.

NO WAY @Genburten getting hacked mid algs game pic.twitter.com/PaVOjmnEGs

— Apryze🌹 (@Apryze_) March 18, 2024

According to the Anti-Cheat Police Department on Twitter, the whole thing was facilitated by an RCE (remote code execution) exploit. The tweet also noted that it’s unclear as to whether the exploit was tied to EA’s systems or the anti-cheat. For now, they advise avoiding both as the fact that the hackers can apply cheats on players’ machines remotely also means they can implement other things as well – like ransomware.

PSA: There is currently an RCE exploit being abused in @PlayApex. It is unsure whether it comes from the game or the actual anti-cheat (@TeddyEAC ). I would advise against playing any games protected by EAC or any EA titles once they have fixed this or can comment.

Currently,…

— Anti-Cheat Police Department 🕵️ (@AntiCheatPD) March 18, 2024

The providers of the anti-cheat software – Easy Anti-Cheat tweeted for the first time since May of 2019 in response to the RCE issues saying that they have “investigated recent reports” and “are confident that there is no RCE vulnerability within EAC being exploited.” They also add that they’ll work with their partners for any additional support needed.

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