Apex Legends
Respawn briefly went dark in the wake of a shocking hack that gave Apex Legends pro players cheats during the NA Finals, causing the entire event to be postponed until the security issue could be sorted. And it is not fully sorted yet.
For the first time since the hack, Respawn has not given an update on what’s going on and the steps they’re taking to make sure things get back on track. The statement reads:
“On Sunday, a few professional Apex Legends player accounts were hacked during an ALGS event. Game and player security are our highest priorities, which is why we paused the competition to address the issue immediately. Our teams have deployed the first of a layered series of updates to protect the Apex Legends player community and create a secure experience for everyone. Thank you for your patience.”
There was not further commentary on some of the more specific, rumored details of the hack, including reports that this was an RCE remote hack that actually gained control of these player’s computers, reportedly executed by a trolling hacker who had been harassing pros for months.
Before Respawn issued this message, Easy Anti-Cheat, which Apex Legends uses, came out with its own statement that this was not something on their end:
“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.”
The implication that this is a vulnerability that could in theory affect any player until it’s fully fixed does not seem to have deterred most players from continuing to play. On Steam, there is a drop off, but a relatively small one. The game has gone from peaking around 440K concurrent players most days to now being around 380K or so. Noticeable, but it’s not like everyone has just stopped playing. The danger to the average user may be low, but we still don’t know enough about what this hack is to say that for sure. Plenty of players seem okay pressing on regardless.
This was one of the most absurd, embarrassing things to ever happen in an esports pro match, across any game. Respawn needs to get a handle on this and give as much of an explanation as they can about what happened, what was potentially accessed and what they’re doing to prevent something this insane from happening again in the future.
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