Apex Legends streamers surprised to find aimbot and other hacks added to their PCs in the middle of major competition
www.pcgamer.com
The hack may have been spread through Apex's anti-cheat software.

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.”

  • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    20·
    9 months ago

    Mmmm I’ve not done any digging, but the likelihood of a large number of streamers all using cheating software and a large number of them literally announcing it and leaving the game is quite slim.

    Think of it this way, assuming they were cheating, the streamers would not want to get caught right? So they would be using cheats that aren’t being broadcast over their streaming software. To then announce “oh no I’m cheating” and quit would be silly, what would be the point of this even joining the tournament at that point? On the other hand, if the cheats were visible on their streams… that seems like a glaring issue a streamer wouldn’t make, never mind a large number of them.

    • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.deEnglish
      11·
      9 months ago

      I think their hypothesis is that the streamers had installed and used cheats outside of the tournament and that the cheat suppliers enabled them remotely to advertise on the big stream.

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        Doubtful. Unless the cheats popped up and said “buy cheats at [cheat website]” then it’s not even really advertising. They’d also be shooting themselves in the foot by showing their cheats are remotely controlled.

        Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe it’s possible. But it’s much more likely that a “fuck you” hack was pulled, rather than the majority of streamers all cheating by coincidence.