Apex Legends’ North American Finals were postponed recently due to the impact of a an unprecedented breach during the tournament. We’re used to hearing stories about a pro here and there getting caught using cheats during a tournament, but what happened over the weekend was quite shocking to say the least.
Pros participating in the North American Finals were somehow distributed cheats, including aimbots and wallhacks, and one player even ended up getting banned before EA stepped in and postponed the event.
The hackers have now given 2 Apex Legends pro players cheats in the middle of an ALGS match. ImperialHal has now also been hacked and the hacker forcibly enabled aimbot on his account mid game. Have never seen something like this in esports. pic.twitter.com/VY30Q21Dok
— ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) March 18, 2024
Concerns that the game’s Easy Anti-Cheat had been breached and that what players were experiencing was an RCE (or remote code execution) that could put all players at risk. Easy Anti-Cheat released a statement soon after, concluding that there was no evidence of an RCE vulnerability within the software.
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
Some speculated that the situation originated with a hacker named Destroyer2009, who has a history of hacking pros in the past, though we aren’t aware of anything to substantiate that at this time.
We’ll bring you any updates from EA and Respawn as they develop.