Concern over Easy Anti-Cheat: What the Apex Tournament Hack Exposes
By Gaming Editor Bonny Murphy
A recent and bold hack occurred during the Global Series tournament of popular shooter Apex Legends. Hacking in gaming has been consistent annoyance for gamers worldwide and many developers have implemented a variety of strategies to combat hacking. Outside of being a frustration for players who encounter a hacker, widespread hacking can have significant consequences for games popularity, success and longevity. If a competitive game is easy to hack, it ceases to be competitive and clean players will lose all interest in that game. This hack during a professional Apex tournament should be taken very seriously as it could be the start of a series of hacks across the Apex gaming space and competitive shooters generally.
I must admit, though hacking is a serious and frustrating problem, watching stream footage of the hack happening live was quite entertaining. There is nothing more shocking than seeing a pro-payer suddenly seeing though walls and panicking. The unfortunate few professional players targeted by the hack were gifted the ability to see through terrain and walls knowing other players positions, commonly referred to as wall-hacks, and enhanced ability to aim with weapons, known as aimbot. When the players noticed the hacks they immediately stopped playing and confusion ensued as to whether the tournament could continue in good faith. The team at Apex Legends was unfortunately left with no choice but to postpone the tournament due to this bold hack. This hack took place on a global professional stage and in mainstream sporting terms, would be the equivalent of a member of the public running onto a pitch and attempting to inject steroids to a footballer mid game. One positive of such a devastating hack is that it exposes to gaming developers the very real problem many everyday players have with hacking. Seeing a selection of professional Apex Legends players desperate and confused is often the experience of an everyday player being confronted with a hacking opponent. Hence, the only question the masses had, was where did this hack come from?
Information is still developing on what caused this hack. The Anti-Cheat Police department, an organisation who attempt to combat hacking in video games, citing that the hack was done through Remote Code Execution (RCE). They expressed that Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), the anti-cheat software utilised by Apex Legends, may have been a factor in the hack. However, they do note they are unsure on this claim and the hack could have come from the game itself. Either way, they advised avoiding playing games protected by EAC or any other games published by the same company that published Apex Legends, Electronic Arts (EA). As of a tweet published March 18, EAC claim they ‘are confident that there is no RCE vulnerability within EAC being exploited.’ (@Teddy EAC). Regardless of this claim, widespread concern has brewed surrounding EA published games and games that run EAC.
The importance of handling a hack like this cannot be understated as the clear intent of the hacker was to undermine the professional competitive level of Apex Legends. A competitive game survives on its ability to provide an engaging and fair skill ladder for players to climb. The professional e-sports scene of any competitive game is the top of this ladder, an idealised space for many players who aim to reach it one day. This type of hack undermines that goal and is detrimental to Apex Legends, and if not resolved quickly, will cause players to hop to a safer and fairer game. The average experience you or I may have of hacking is another player applying aimbot or wall-hacks to themselves. The Apex hack has shown a concerning new facet to hacking, where a hacker targets your device as opposed to their own. This has many privacy and internet safety concerns regarding what else a hacker could access or do on your personal device. I would encourage others to investigate this situation further. Comprehensive lists are available online of every game published by EA or that utilises EAC to protect from cheating. Hopefully, more awareness surrounding hacking may cause developers to take this issue more seriously and not spring into action when only professional players are targeted.
