Apex Legends Streamers Hacked During ALGS Tournament, And The Suspected Cause Is Ironic [Update]

The Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) regional finals have been delayed for North America after two players were hacked mid-game over the weekend, and ironically, it seems the Apex's anti-cheat software may be to blame. [Update: Epic Games, which owns Easy Anti-Cheat, has issued a statement saying the situation was unrelated to any kind of EAC exploit. "We have investigated recent reports of a potential RCE issue in Apex Legends, which we have confirmed to be unrelated to Easy Anti-Cheat," it said in a statement. "We are confident THERE IS NO RCE vulnerability within EAC being exploited."]

DarkZero's GenBurten (real name: Noyan Oskoze) was hit first, when he mysteriously gained the ability to see enemy players through walls in the middle of a match. Later, TSM's ImperialHal (Phillip Dosen) suddenly found himself unintentionally aimbotting.

"I'm cheating! I'm cheating! I'm cheating!" Dosen exclaimed in shock when he realized what was happening. "I'm f***ing cheating, I have aimbot!"

As for Oskoze, the words "Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom" began to scroll across the screen as the streamer quickly took his hands off the controls, announcing, "I can see everyone!"

The Anti-Cheat Police Department--a volunteer-run organization that is unaffiliated with ALGS but specializes in "gathering intelligence on cheats to detect and disrupt cheating vendors"--weighed in on the situation on Twitter. It advised players competing in the event to protect their personal information by changing account passwords and putting other safeguards in place, like reinstalling their operating system.

The volunteer organization suspects that Apex's Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) could be the source of the issue, with hackers using remote code execution (RCE) to inject cheats into streamers' PCs. The Anti-Cheat Police Department also stressed that such an exploit could be used for other nefarious purposes beyond disrupting ALGS--like remotely installing ransomware and other malicious software onto competitors' machines. However, as noted about, Epic says an EAC vulnerability is not to blame for the incident.

Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment also made a statement on the incident via its official esports Twitter account, announcing that the North American regional finals would be postponed, and promising to share more information soon.