As of: March 26, 2024, 10:48 a.m
By: Philipp Hansen
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Hacker ruins 5 million tournament in Apex Legends – Speaks in an interview © Sergey Nivens Imago-images / Respawn / EA (montage)
He hacked a huge e-sports event.
The hacker said he was still merciful.
He wanted to draw attention to problems and besides, it was “just fun.”
Hamburg – In the popular video game Apex Legends, the grand finale of an e-sports tournament with a $5 million prize pool had to be canceled.
Hackers called on the stream to vote for Putin and turned honest players into cheating cheaters.
In the interview, one of the cyber attackers shows no remorse, but at least has two answers to the “why”.
Hacker in an interview: Destroyed 5 million e-sports tournament – says it was “just for fun”
In March 2024, a prestigious esports event was “
compromised
,” organizers later said.
The Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) has $5 million in the prize pool waiting for the best players.
No one got the money because hackers destroyed the event “
just for fun
,” which was postponed indefinitely.
The hackers secretly distributed cheats to unwitting event participants at the push of a button - so at least two professionals in Apex Legends were suddenly able to see through walls (wallhack) or hit perfect headshots automatically (aimbot).
This unfair advantage was streamed live - the suddenly cheating pros themselves shouted that they had just been hacked and were not cheating on purpose.
Since then, some players have been afraid to start the popular first-person shooter Apex Legends - because they will get banned for using cheats.
Messages like “ vote for Putin
” also appeared in the stream for the audience
.
A disaster for the e-sports scene, now one of the hackers responsible is speaking out about his motives.
Hacker confesses:
Two hackers are said to be responsible for the hack at the ALGS event.
Their fighting names are Destroyer2009 and R4ndom.
The former gave an interview to the US magazine TechCrunch on March 20, 2024 and confessed to the crime.
When asked why, the hacker has two answers: “
it was just for fun
,” is one of the statements from Destoyer2009.
The other motivation is a reminder to the stingy game developers.
Imagine if it hadn't been a joke and we hadn't included memes in the cheat.
I'm pretty sure you could ruin someone's career if a cheat pops up during a tournament.
Hacker Destroyer2009 in an interview
The confessed hacker says unironically that he was a true innocent when he committed his crime and that he would not have harmed anyone.
If it had been done that way, things could have been much nastier.
By the way, this is how the professional reacted to the hack that turned him into a wicked cheater:
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Hackers saw no alternative: no money for reporting security gaps, so an attack
Reason two for the cyber attack:
Since there is no reward for reporting security gaps, the hacker didn't know what else to do to draw attention to the problems, it says in the interview: "
They probably already know how to patch it, without being reported
.”
Why the hacker sought the big stage and had to blow up the final of a tournament with $5 million in prize money is said to be the fault of EA and Respawn themselves.
These are the publisher and developers behind the video game Apex Legends.
The same e-sports event was celebrated last year.
Revenant from the popular shooter Apex Legends is a hacker in the game story.
© EA / Respawn
Are Apex players in danger?
According to the hacker, it's not all that bad.
Because apart from him and his partner, no one would know how the game's errors could be exploited in such a way, so there is no danger to Apex Legends.
Players shouldn't worry
Destroyer2009 preaches calm
Since the action, there has been enormous media interest in the hack and many Apex Legends players feared that they would suddenly be branded as cheaters even in the middle of the game.
If such unauthorized cheating is discovered, the player's account will be blocked.
According to developer Respawn, they are working on solutions.
The Apex Legends security team promised on March 19th that they had taken the first steps “to create a safe environment for everyone,” according to X/Twitter.
A whole series of updates is to follow.
Cheaters are one of the biggest problems in online video games.