Apex Legends tourney organizers urged to tighten up cybersecurity measures following ALGS hack

Tournament organizers handling the Apex Legends Global Series or ALGS are urged to tighten up its cybersecurity measures as the future of this year’s playoffs is in limbo due to a hacking incident which shut down the entire tournament.

This was after the finals of the North American leg of the Apex Legends Global Series was postponed due to a hacking incident that happened in the Pro League Split 1 finals match.

“Due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised, we have made the decision to postpone the NA finals at this time,” Respawn Entertainment, Apex Legends’ developer, said in a brief statement.

AFKGaming was able to identify the hacker, a notorious Apex Legends hacker named “Destroyer2009.”

Noyan “Genburten” Ozkose of DarkZero was the first victim, when a hack happened during the third game of the series. AFKGaming reported that Genburten suddenly got an unknown UI interface on his screen, which gave him the ability to see other players through walls. 

“According to the hack interface, Genburten was also given an aimbot by the hacker. His chat window spammed a message hinting at famous Apex cheater Destroyer2009,” AFKGaming reported. This was followed up by a message in the game lobby saying, “Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 and R4ndom.”

Meanwhile, TSM player Philip “ImperialHal” Dosen also received the same aimbot. An aimbot is a tool which allows a user to effectively aim against their opponents.

Shortly after, the entire game was ended by tournament admins. 

While the exact nature and method of the hack was not yet identified, speculation on social media about what exactly happened is already brewing up.

Speculation about a Remote Code Execution or RCE flaw were discussed in various online fora.

Mac “Albralelie” Beckwith, a professional Apex Legends player for TSM, said, “This HAS to be an RCE vulnerability/exploit right? This is the same kind of s*** the PC COD community dealt with in COD4-BO3 and completely bricked those games. If this is RCE related this is REALLY f**king bad if respawn can’t get this fixed asap.”

Easy Anti-Cheat or EAC, the software used by Respawn Entertainment for Apex Legends, came up with a tweet apparently referencing what had happened in the ALGS.

“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,” EAC stated.

As of press time, there is still no explanation from Respawn or from its parent company EA about the source of the hacking and what they plan to do for the ALGS finals.