By now, you’ve probably heard about the Apex Legends Global Series getting hacked. The news has been going viral on social media, and plenty of people are raising concerns (and rightfully so) about the competition’s future and player data safety. Let’s get you right up to speed with everything that’s going on.
What Happened at the Global Series 2024?
The Global Series — one of the most anticipated events for the Apex community – boasts a huge prize pool of $5 million, giving it a considerable following and presence on streaming platforms like Twitch. If something were to affect the competition, you could be sure the news would spread like wildfire.
It’s bad enough to have your game hacked; it’s worse when you are competing for 5 million dollars. Unfortunately for Genburten and ImperialHal—two popular Apex streamers—that’s exactly what happened on Sunday while participating in the North American finals.
The hackers made a right mess of things, giving Genburten the ability to see through walls and bestowing an aimbot onto ImperialHal’s weapons. That’s not all, though; the hackers enabled a screen mockingly showing various hacks such as magic bullets and autofire. They also appear to have a sense of humor, as the words “Vote Putin” found their way onto the screens of the two streamers.
How Has Respawn Entertainment Responded?
Naturally, this was a bit of a crisis for Respawn and EA. They responded by postponing the Global Series event until they could find the gap in their security and fix it. It’s good to see them taking swift action so that the Apex community can get back to grinding towards that $5 million USD prize pool as soon as possible.
The developers have shared updates on the new dates for the competition. According to their tweet, Challenger Circuit 3 will be held from April 6-8 and Challenger Circuit 4 on April 13-15, while the Pro League Qualifiers will remain on April 19-21. Keep a keen eye on their Twitter handle for further updates and to see if this incident will have any effect on the Apex Coins price.
As far as Easy Anti-Cheat is concerned—the company responsible for the anti-cheat engine used by Apex Legends—they believe there was no issue from their end concerning RCE. We’ll have to wait for further developments to see whether the vulnerability existed on Respawn’s end or Easy Anti-Cheat’s.
What Did the Hacker Say About The Incident?
So, who’s the guy behind all this? A hacker going by the name Destroyer2009 has talked to TechCrunch and explained his motivation behind the incident. Believe it or not, he says he did it ‘just for fun’. He added that he was doing it for the greater good so that the developers would be made aware of the security weakness and fix it.
We know what you’re thinking: if he wanted to help out so badly, why didn’t he just tell Respawn instead of going into sabotaging a major tournament? Well, Destroyer2009 stated that he would have, but Respawn and Electronic Arts do not offer any compensation for gray-hat hackers like him.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the hacker did not share how he got the job done, saying he didn’t want other hackers to exploit the gap before the developers had a chance to fix it. So, what do you think? Did he really just do it to help out the guys over at Apex, or is he trying to save Grace?
Is it Safe to Play Apex Right Now?
What we do know is that Destroyer2009 has claimed that he and his team did not hack into the computers of the two streamers and only targeted the “Apex Process,” as he puts it. But obviously, the Apex community is concerned about potential data breaches after this event.
Our opinion is that the hackers probably just targeted the two streamers because they knew a significant number of people would be watching them. This allowed them to send a message about there being a flaw in the system. It’s unlikely that your account would be targeted if you were just to hop on for a couple of rounds in Apex Legends.
That being said, other hackers are probably on the lookout for the same vulnerability that allowed Destroyer2009 into the system. And unlike our friendly hackers (or so they claim), they will probably have malicious intentions. So, it’s very much possible we might see attacks from other hackers in the coming days.
Additionally, before you start looking for Apex accounts for sale, wait for an official announcement from Respawn so you know you’re not buying a breached account! You can always hop back on once the smoke clears.
