Electronic Arts is postponing the current season of the Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) in North America, following hacker attacks that disrupted players during the tournament.
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ALGS is an esportswhere players compete in a fast-paced, strategic battle royale. The series is structured around competitions that include qualifiers, regionals like the NA Finals, and major tournaments that culminate in a championship with big prizes.
During the third match of the final between the teams DarkZero and Luminosity, the game client of one of the players, Genburten, suddenly displayed a cheat tool called ‘TSM HALAL HOOK.’ Suddenly, a window appeared with various cheats for the game and references such as “Vote for Putin.”
The hacker gave the player the ability to see the positions of all other players on the map, giving him a head start. This forced Genburten to abandon the game, leaving his team one player short.
Instead of canceling the match, EA announced Luminosity as the winner in X and moved on to the fourth match.
The malicious hacker struck again, this time giving the player with the nickname ' ImperialHal ' an aimbot. The tournament administrators eventually intervened and locked the match
The attacks on Apex Legends are believed to have been carried out by hackers using the aliases 'Destroyer2009' and 'R4ndom', whose names appeared in Genburten's chat window when the attack was carried out.
Shortly afterwards, the official Apex Legends Esports account on X announced that the North American Finals would be postponed until outside interventions could be secured.
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A person claiming to be Destroyer 2009 later told Anti-Cheat Police Department user X that he used a remote code execution vulnerability to hack players' clients. The alleged perpetrator did not specify whether the problem was in the Apex Legends client, the Easy Anti-Cheat software , or other software .
There are many theories about how the ALGS attacks were carried out, including a serious RCE vulnerability in the Apex Legends client, a bug in Easy Anti-Cheat, or players' devices having already been leaked before the games.
Today, Easy Anti-Cheat announced that it is confident that its software does not have any RCE vulnerabilities.
The developers have not yet confirmed anything, so it is not known whether the affected players were leaked earlier or if they were hacked during matches.
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However, the conduct of the attacks is an unprecedented event in the history of the ALGS, as there has never been a case of players being hacked in-game, leading to the suspension of a tournament.
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What is an RCE vulnerability?
A remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, such as the one exploited in the Apex Legends attacks, refers to a situation where an attacker has the ability to cause arbitrary code to execute on a remote server or service. This means that the attacker can control the operation of the system or service, potentially causing serious damage. This can include accessing sensitive data, altering system functions, or even completely disrupting the system. An RCE vulnerability is one of the most critical types of vulnerability, as it allows attackers to bypass security measures and perform malicious actions with significant consequences.
Source: bleepingcomputer
