Wow it finally happened. So glad I switched to steam running on linux mint last week. I refused to install helldivers because it wanted to install some no holds barred god level permissions anti-cheat software. Windows 11 was the last straw for me. Good times…
The volunteers at the Anti-Cheat Police Department have since issued a PSA announcing, “There is currently an RCE exploit being abused in [Apex Legends]” and that it could be delivered via from the game itself, or its anti-cheat protection. “I would advise against playing any games protected by EAC or any EA titles”, they went on to say.
As for players of the tournament, they strongly recommended taking protective measures. “It is advisable that you change your Discord passwords and ensure that your emails are secure. also enable MFA for all your accounts if you have not done it yet”, they said, “perform a clean OS reinstall as soon as possible. Do not take any chances with your personal information, your PC may have been exposed to a rootkit or other malicious software that could cause further damage.”
These 2 pros have performed at lan multiple times and the type of cheats used would have been immediately noticed on any stream.
The hacker (destroyer2009) also gifted in excess of $8k worth of lootboxes to multiple streamers, suggesting that they have access to some remote APIs they shouldn’t.
On top of that a few months ago there was a widespread issue with top players being targeted in lobbies where they’d drop and then 57 bots would drop and zombie rush, all named the same thing and controlled by some kind of rudimentary script.
Pretty much everything together has ruled out the possibility of either of the players involved being the ones who are purposefully cheating.
I’m not saying they were purposefully cheating in this or any tournament, and I agree cheating under that context would be totally obvious. But, it is feasible that a pro worried about their stats might be willing to cheat in situations where the stakes are lower outside of tournaments.
What I also don’t understand is, if this hacker has lobby wide access, why was it only these two people who got compromised? Why wouldn’t the hacker just do the entire lobby? Clearly this hacker loves the clout. Forcing cheats on the entire lobby would certainly be more impressive.
PS. This is all blatant speculation. From all sides. No one, other than the hacker and hopefully Apex really knows what happened. I am mostly frustrated by ACPD’s immediate fear mongering of a RCE in EAC or Apex based on no concrete evidence.