Apex Legends tournament hack forces Easy Anti-Cheat to defend software safety
UPDATE: EAC "confident" issue not with its code.
UPDATE 3pm UK: Easy Anti-Cheat has released a statement regarding player concerns a vulnerability in its software was how hackers managed to target last night's Apex Legends Global Series finals.
"We have investigated recent reports of a potential [remote code execution] issue within Easy Anti-Cheat," the company said on X. "At this time - we are confident that there is no [remote code execution] vulnerability within EAC being exploited," it concluded.
We have not received a response from EA yet. The original story follows below.
ORIGINAL STORY 11am UK: A hacking incident during the Apex Legends Global Series last night has caused wider concerns over Easy Anti-Cheat and whether it's safe to play games it's used in.
The North America finals of the EA-run Apex tournament saw players Noyan "Genburten" Ozkose Phillip "ImperialHal" Dosen getting hacked mid-game.
As recorded in clips of the matches, Genburten was suddenly able to see the positions of all players. "I'm getting hacked," he repeated, before leaving the game. ImperialHal, meanwhile, was given an aimbot during a match. Once he realised, he told his teammates and decided to finish the game without shooting.
The finals were eventually abandoned. "Due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised, we have made the decision to postpone the NA finals at this time," the Apex esports team announced on social media platform X.
The hacks are believed to be the work of Destroyer2009, a cheater who's recently been appearing in Apex Legends. In footage of Genburten's hack, the words "Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 and R4ndom" are spammed into chat from Genburten's account.
Other than the notice from Apex's esports team, there's been no update from EA or Respawn. This has led to speculation and worry over the safety of playing Apex Legends, or any game which also uses the Easy Anti-Cheat software, as it's unclear whether the exploit comes from the game itself or EAC. Currently, the community-run account Anti-Cheat Police Department, which collects information on cheats in games, has recommended players avoid all games which use EAC, and suggested players in the Global Series tournament perform a clean reinstall of their OS.
One user on X has compiled a list of all games EAC is used in (taken from its website), so players know what to currently avoid. It should be noted the list provided by EAC isn't complete, as Elden Ring (which I was only playing last night) isn't included, and I know that definitely uses EAC.
Eurogamer has contacted EA for more information on the situation and we'll update if we hear back.
Employees at Respawn started to be notified of layoffs at the end of last week, with the Apex Legends team in particular being affected. The layoffs are part of the 670 job cuts EA announced in February by boss Andrew Wilson.