Hackers Sow Chaos During Apex Legends’ Pro Tournament Regional Finals This Weekend

Hackers ed in on the epic pro tournament battles being waged in Apex Legends as part of its Global Series regional finals this weekend, not as actual competitors but as behind-the-scenes puppet masters. They apparently decided that several players needed a bit of help and proceeded to wreak havoc during the North American finals by deploying hacks during matches.

The first victim of the hacks was DarkZero’s Noyan “Genburten” Ozkose who suddenly found himself with a wall hack. It happened partway through the third match of the day with the message: ”Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom” spamming over chat, forcing him to abandon the match. TSM’s Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen was also given an aimbot before he lost his ability to shoot. He attempted to play out the rest of the round but ultimately ended up leaving the match as well.

According to the Anti-Cheat Police Department, the hacks were reportedly delivered through the game itself or via its anti-cheat system, Epic Games’ Easy Anti-Cheat. “I would advise against playing any games protected by EAC or any EA titles,” tweeted one of the group’s volunteers.

Tournament participants are also advised to change their s, make sure that their emails are secure, enable multi-factor authentication, and perform a clean OS reinstall as soon as possible. “Do not take any chances with your personal information, your PC may have been exposed to a rootkit or other malicious software that could cause further damage,” warns the group.

The NA leg of the tournament has now been postponed due to the hacks. “Due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised, we have made the decision to postpone the NA finals at this time,” tweeted the Apex Legends dev team.

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