The world of Apex Legends esports is still in a state of shock following Sunday's catastrophic ALGS NA finals, which saw several high-profile professional players hacked live during a frenetic game on Storm Point.
The game has received countless complaints over the quality of its anti-cheat, and this conversation came to a head when the security of their own professional players was put at risk when names such as ImperialHal and Genburten had aimbot and wall hacks uploaded to their accounts mid-game on Sunday.
As such, the NA Finals of the ALGS esports tournament have been put on indefinite hold while Respawn investigates the breach. In response, the developers recently issued a statement regarding the ongoing situation.
Respawn took to Twitter to assure fans that "game and player security is of the highest priority", and the community has congratulated the devs for having such a swift response to such an unprecedented security breach. The perpetrator hasn't been officially named by Respawn, but a hacker by the name of Destroyer2009 claimed ownership when they used Genburten's account to let everyone watching the ALGS know that they were responsible.
This led to concerns that the game itself was compromised, and an anti-cheat monitoring account on Twitter advised ALGS players to take immediate action to protect their personal information. Easy-Anti Cheat then swiftly took to Twitter to confirm that they are confident that there is "no RCE vulnerability within EAC being exploited".
Respawn has not revealed any further information about whether the players' PCs were compromised, nor did they issue any comment on the fact that the players affected were still unable to access the game since their accounts were swiftly banned following the hack. This puts the foreseeable future of the ALGS NA finals in an uncertain position as they continue the investigation, although it's quite understandable that they want to get to the bottom of what happened before continuing the tournament.
The official Twitter account for Apex Legends Esports confirmed in a post that they "do not anticipate any further changes to the Split 1 playoffs", and so the community remains in a state of stasis as fans and players alike await the outcome of this investigation.
The clip below shows the moment Genburten, a player for the team Dark Zero, realised that his account had been compromised and hacks had been uploaded. Hacker 'Destroyer2009', a known Apex Legend cheater, and another alias, 'R4ndom' can be seen claiming responsibility via Genburten's team chat, and a concerning cheat UI appears on his screen while the game shows every player location on the map.
It's promising that both Respawn and Easy Anti-Cheat have made comments on the situation, but for now, we remain in the dark as to the outcome of the ALGS NA finals. We'll update you with more information as we get it.