Tag Archive for: Legends

Apex Legends hacker said he hacked tournament games ‘for fun’

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On Sunday, the world of video games was shaken by a hacking and cheating scandal.

During a competitive esports tournament of Apex Legends, a free-to-play shooter video game played by hundreds of thousands of players daily, hackers appeared to insert cheats into the games of two well-known streamers — effectively hacking the players midgame.

“Wait, what the fuck? I’m getting hacked, I’m getting hacked bro, I’m getting hacked,” said one of the players allegedly compromised during a live stream of the gameplay.

The incidents forced the organizers of the Apex Legends Global Series tournament, which has a $5 million total prize pool, to postpone the event indefinitely “due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised.”

As the midgame hacks were underway, the game’s chatbot displayed messages on-screen that appeared to come from the hackers: “Apex hacking global series, by Destroyer2009 &R4andom,” the messages read.

In an interview with TechCrunch, the hacker Destroyer2009 took credit for the hacks, saying that he did it “just for fun,” and with the goal of forcing the Apex Legends’ developers to fix the vulnerability he exploited.

The hacks sent the Apex Legends community into a frenzy, with countless streamers reacting to the incidents, and some players suggesting Apex Legends is not safe to play, because every player could be at risk of getting hacked not only in-game, but potentially having their computers hacked, too.

Destroyer2009 declined to provide details of how he allegedly pulled off hacking the two players midgame, or what specific vulnerabilities he exploited.

“I really don’t want to go into the details until everything is fully patched and everything goes back to normal,” the hacker said. The only thing Destroyer2009 said regarding the technique he used was that the vulnerability “has nothing to do with the server and I’ve never touched anything outside of the Apex process,” and that he did not hack the two players’ computers directly.

The hacks “never went outside of the game,” he said.

Destroyer2009 said he did not report the vulnerability to Respawn, the video game developer that makes Apex Legends,…

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Massive ‘Apex Legends’ Hack Disrupts NA Finals, Raises Serious Security Concerns

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Something rather terrifying has disrupted the North American Finals of Apex Legends, and players are now starting to potentially worry about their own accounts and the overall safety of the game.

Respawn and EA have postponed the North American Finals in the wake of the “competitive integrity” of the game being compromised. This involved a wild situation where someone was giving the pros hacks like aimbots and wallhacks as they were playing in the Finals event, effectively ruining the entire thing without anyone actually attempting to cheat. Here’s what that looked like (warning: language):

This shocked players and one even got banned from the game for using an aimbot cheat before Respawn shut the entire thing down.

What’s unclear is the extent of the breach. There is some concern that it might not just be for messing with the pros at the finals, but a larger security issue with the entire game that could affect the wider playerbase. Some creators are claiming on social media that they’ve scanned their PCs and are finding viruses, though there’s so much panic going around there’s no evidence that has to do with this hack. But if the hack could breach a pro match, it would seem to be something that could breach normal players, even if it’s not actually doing so right now. Many believe this is the work of one hacker, Destroyer2009, who has previously been hacking pros, and this was an RCE remote exploit using their PCs, but none of that has been confirmed.

It’s hard to understate just how unprecedented something like this is in a major esports event. A finals event getting put on ice because someone breached the game to give players hacks is simply something that does not happen.

This has led to a mass of complaints about Apex’s anti-cheat systems, which clearly failed in a massive way for this situation. But it also speaks to just how advanced cheats have become as this is a private lobby for pros playing in an esports final.

Not that this is necessarily related, but Respawn was just hit days ago with 23 layoffs including Apex Legends developers, some of whom were longtime veterans. Though if anything, this shows that EA needs to…

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Hackers Behind Riot Games Breach Stole League of Legends Source Code

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Riot Games says it lost the source code to the multiplayer title League of Legends after hackers breached its internal systems last week. 

The hackers also stole the source code to another game, TeamFight Tactics (TFT), and the computer code for a “legacy anticheat platform,” Riot Games revealed on Twitter today.

In addition, the hackers sent a “ransom email” to the game studio on the same day, demanding it pay up to keep the source code private. But Riot Games is refusing to submit.

As a result, it’s possible the hackers could publicly leak or try to sell the stolen source code to the highest bidder. However, both League of Legends and TFT are already free-to-play titles. Copyright protections also prevent other game studios from stealing assets for a game. 

According to Riot Games, the real threat is the stolen source code giving cheaters a behind-the-scenes look at exploiting the game mechanics. “Truthfully, any exposure of source code can increase the likelihood of new cheats emerging,” the company said. “Since the attack, we’ve been working to assess its impact on anticheat and to be prepared to deploy fixes as quickly as possible if needed.”

The stolen source code also contains experimental features for the games, but not all of these features may end up in the final product. 

So far, Riot Games has only said the hackers managed to infiltrate the company’s systems through a “social engineering attack.” This likely means the attackers duped a company employee into giving up their corporate password or installing malware onto their computer. 

The incident has temporarily forced the company to delay updates for its games. But in some good news, Riot Games maintains that no user data appears to have been compromised in the hack. The company also expects to repair its ability to release game updates later this week. 

“We’re committed to transparency and will release a full report in the future detailing the attackers’ techniques, the areas where Riot’s security controls failed, and the steps we’re taking to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” the studio added.

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Pair of Apex Legends Players Banned for DDoS Server Attacks – Threatpost

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Pair of Apex Legends Players Banned for DDoS Server Attacks  Threatpost

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