Major Apex Legends Tournament Thrown Into Chaos By Hackers

Over the weekend, the hero shooter game Apex Legends, made by EA and Respawn Entertainment, held a tournament that was reportedly compromised by hackers. Multiple players' systems were breached, and game cheats such as X-ray vision and aimbots were installed. How exactly this happened is unclear at this time, but it seems as if it is an issue with Apex Legends or the EA software used to launch the game.

Over the weekend, the Apex Legends Global Series tournament was going on, with a number of players live streaming their perspective in the games. For example, Genburten was one of the players who encountered the in-game exploits. As you can see from the clip below, they started seeing players through walls, which triggered a rather justifiable panic, and they ended up disconnecting from the match. This is also what happened to other players who faced similar issues, likely using the same vulnerability, whatever that might be.

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

— Apryze🌹 (@Apryze_) March 18, 2024

Following this occurrence, Apex Legends announced that it had decided to postpone the North American finals to investigate what happened. A volunteer team on X dubbed the Anti-Cheat Police Department noted that an RCE was being abused against Apex Legends players. The group also mentioned that it was unclear whether this was an issue with Apex Legends or the anti-cheat software Easy Anti-Cheat. However, Easy Anti-Cheat posted that it is “confident that there is no RCE vulnerability within EAC being exploited.”

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

While this announcement should not be taken as gospel, it is likely that this is a specific issue with Apex Legends and EA. Interestingly enough, this comes hot on the heels of a number of layoffs at EA and Respawn, which led to the stoppage of work on a Star Wars first-person shooter, among other potential projects. In any event, it will be interesting to see how the investigation into this matter progresses, so stay tuned to HotHardware for the latest.