Apex Legends pro player hack sparks grave warning for millions of gamers

It was only a few hours ago that the Apex Legends North American finals had to be shut down due to hackers infiltrating at least two professional players' PCs mid-game.

The hackers gave the two professional players cheats such as aimbot and wallhacks, resulting in the game being postponed and the security of Apex Legends being thrown into question. Notably, this story is still developing at the time of reporting as it is only a few hours old, so details are subject to change. Volunteers at the Anti-Cheat Police Department took to X to warn the public that "There is currently an RCE exploit being abused in Apex Legends. It's unsure whether it comes from the game of the actual anti-cheat (Easy Anti-Cheat)."

The anti-cheat account goes on to recommend gamers not to play any games protected by Easy Anti-Cheat, or any Electronic Arts titles until they have fixed the issue or have publicly commented on the security of their games. The RCE (Remote Code Execution) exploit is currently being used to inject cheats into streamers' machines, but it means the hackers are able to execute codes on the target machine remotely. This could mean anything from installing ransomware and malware to anything else the hackers want.

• Read more: Apex Legends pro players get hacked during NA finals, EA confirmed 'compromised'

It should be noted that at the moment it's unclear if there is officially an RCE exploit within Apex Legends itself or the Easy Anti-Cheat security software. If an RCE is discovered in Apex Legends' game files, it would mean there is potential for all Apex Legends players to be at risk. On a worse note, if it's discovered within the Easy Anti-Cheat security software, it would mean all titles using Epic Games' security software would be at risk. The "small" list of Easy Anti-Cheat titles can be seen below.

Due to these hacks it's advised to be weary about playing Apex Legends, or any game that uses Easy Anti-Cheat as it could result security vulnerabilities for your system. It's recommended to wait until EA, Respawn Entertainment, or Easy Anti-Cheat make a statement about integrity of their security.

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