Apex Legends Tournament Hacked: Attacker Claims It Was ‘Fun’
The Apex Legends Global Series, a high-stakes esports tournament featuring a $5 million prize pool, was brought to an abrupt halt this past Sunday. Organizers were forced to suspend the event indefinitely after hackers breached the game, actively injecting cheats into the live matches of two prominent professional players.
The Breach
During the live broadcasts, viewers witnessed the affected players—identified as Genburten and ImperialHal—suddenly struggling as unauthorized cheat menus appeared on their screens. One of the menus explicitly displayed the text “VOTE PUTIN.” The perpetrators, using the aliases Destroyer2009 and R4andom, left messages within the game’s chat function claiming responsibility for the disruption.
In an interview, the individual operating under the name Destroyer2009 claimed the stunt was motivated by “fun” and a desire to force Respawn, the developer of Apex Legends, to address existing security vulnerabilities. The attacker asserted that he bypassed the game’s defenses without ever touching the server or directly compromising the players’ personal hardware.
Developer Response and Security Concerns
Easy Anti-Cheat, the service provider integrated into the game, publicly stated that there was no evidence of a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability being exploited within their software. An RCE is a critical security flaw that would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a victim’s machine.
Respawn Entertainment has since begun implementing a series of security updates. Conor Ford, a member of the Apex Legends security team, expressed appreciation for the collaborative effort of the development team in navigating the crisis, though the studio has remained tight-lipped regarding specific technical details of the breach.
- No Bug Bounty: Destroyer2009 claimed he did not report the flaw to the studio because neither Respawn nor publisher Electronic Arts offers a financial bug bounty program.
- Target Selection: The hacker stated he chose the two high-profile streamers because they were “nice guys” and he wanted to provide them with “free attention.”
- Official Stance: Respawn confirmed on X that they are deploying layered updates to secure the environment for the community.
Despite the viral nature of the incident, the hacker insisted that general players remain safe, arguing that the specific exploit used is unlikely to be replicated by others before a patch is fully deployed.