A major security incident has left professional Counter-Strike 2 players reeling after the $1 million XSE Pro League LAN in Guangzhou, China. Multiple participants have claimed that the practice PCs provided by event organizers were loaded with malicious software, which they believe led to the theft of their personal Steam accounts.

The situation began when BIG, a German organization, reported that their tournament SSDs had failed. This forced their players to utilize pre-configured practice machines provided at the venue. Kirill “Magnojez” Rodnov of BetBoom shared video evidence on social media showing an antivirus scan flagging a variety of trojan files and spyware on his assigned setup.

Malware and Technical Failures

The identified malware was reportedly capable of bypassing two-factor authentication by stealing active session tokens, in addition to scraping saved passwords and accessing cryptocurrency wallets.

A History of Tournament Chaos

The security breach is only the latest in a series of issues plaguing the XSE Pro League, which has been widely criticized as one of the most poorly managed tournaments in the history of the Esports scene. The event has been marred by:

  • Opening match delays of nearly two hours, with some games pushed back by five to six hours.
  • Instances where Counter-Strike 2 was not even installed on the provided tournament PCs.
  • Technical broadcast failures, including broken audio and incorrect player identification.
  • A power failure caused by a transformer explosion outside the venue, halting play for an hour during a match between 9z and SINNERS.

Reports circulating on Chinese social media and Reddit suggest that the lack of professional oversight was a primary factor in the event's collapse, as the majority of tournament officials were university student volunteers who lacked prior LAN experience.

This incident follows a troubling pattern for Counter-Strike 2 LAN events. Previous tournaments, such as the CSGOEmpire Cup, were abandoned entirely after teams withdrew following a string of organizational failures, including a trophy being destroyed on stage during the PGL Major.