Apex Legends hacker Destroyer2009 revealed in an interview their motives behind the recent ALGS hacks were “just for fun,” but to also point out Respawn’s vulnerabilities.
Apex Legends was recently hit with a hack that cast doubt on the games’ security as two pro players were given hacks against their own will in the middle of an ALGS tournament.
Several days after the incident, the hacker, known as Destroyer2009, has gone on record to talk about his motives and why he interrupted one of the biggest events of the year.
Apex Legends hacker Destroyer2009 reveals why he hacked ALGS Finals
Speaking to TechCrunch in an interview, Destroyer2009 took credit for the hacks and said he was doing it “just for fun”, but also to force Respawn to fix vulnerabilities he exploited in Apex Legends.
Destroyer didn’t reveal how he pulled off the hack, as he wanted to wait until “everything is fully patched and goes back to normal” before doing so. Although, he teased that the vulnerability had nothing to do with anything outside of Apex.
According to the hacker, it “has nothing to do with the server and I’ve never touched anything outside of the Apex process.” Adding that he never hacked the players’ computers directly, only through the game.
Destroyer argued that his hacks on ALGS were never meant to be malicious, rather, intentionally approached it in an “innocent way for players.
“Just imagine if it wasn’t a joke and we didn’t put any memes in the cheat, I’m pretty sure you can ruin someone’s career if they had a cheat pop up on a tournament.”
As for why he didn’t privately approach Respawn or EA about the exploit, Destroyer said it’s because they don’t financially reward hackers or researchers for privately reporting security flaws.
Despite the worrying issues that Destroyer exposed, Respawn has already addressed the hacks, rolling out a new suite of security updates to curb the exploit, with the first of several updates going out on March 19.
