Riot Games has shed some light on the Anti-Cheat system that it uses for Valorant. According to the developers, Riot Games uses a a driver at system startup that it doesn’t scan anything. So yeah, the game actually installs an external program, however, players are free to remove it whenever they want.
As Riot Games explained:
“Vanguard contains a driver component called vgk.sys (similar to other anti-cheat systems). It’s the reason why the game needs to reboot your system after installing. Vanguard doesn’t consider the computer trusted unless the Vanguard driver is loaded at system startup. This part is less common for anti-cheat systems.
This is good for stopping cheaters because a common way to bypass anti-cheat systems is to load cheats before the anti-cheat system starts and either modify system components to contain the cheat or to have the cheat tamper with the anti-cheat system as it loads. Running the driver at system startup time makes this significantly more difficult.
We tried to be very careful with the security of the driver. We’ve had multiple external security research teams review it for flaws (we don’t want to accidentally decrease the security of the computer like other anti-cheat drivers have done in the past). We’re also following a least-privilege approach to the driver where the driver component does as little as possible preferring to let the non-driver component do the majority of work (also the non-driver component doesn’t run unless the game is running).”
Riot Games concluded that the driver component does not collect any information from your computer. Moreover, this driver does ot communicate over the network at all. Players can also remove it at will. If you’ve installed the game, Vangaurd will be as “Riot Vanguard” in Add/Remove programs.
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You dont need to worry about an intrusive driver if you never play this generic trash.
While this seems like a more technically sound anti-cheat, companies CANNOT be trusted to make driver level applications that could increase the vulnerability of the entire OS.
Even if they got the driver reviewed by several companies, this is a system level change and it SHOULD NOT be allowed to become a norm for video games. Especially considering that installing a driver for every single video game that has anti-cheat is ridiculous and a would quickly become a severe security concern. If even one of those drivers has a flaw in it, it could be exploited to bypass OS level protections.
This whole idea is ridiculous and the dev’s have chosen the most overkill option for anti-cheat. Other solutions would have provided far better tradeoffs in invasiveness and anti-cheat.
Sadly, we’re all stuck riding the tidal wave of stupid. Look at how many things should never have seen the light of day in this hobby over the past 15 years. This “will” become the new norm eventually, because the average human being, has s**t for brains.
Hasn’t this already been a thing with stuff like Punk Buster or other Anti-Cheats?
IIRC punk buster at least, doesn’t install a driver. Its much higher level than that I believe.
Yes PunkBuster launches on startup too.
PunkBuster no, BattleEye yes and remains one of the best Anti-Cheat softwares in the market due to it.
However we can’t compare BattleEye with this Custom Solution from Riot, especially when Riot lies about how their Anti-Cheat works.
Doesn’t read nor send any data? Then it would be as useless as a paper weight.
In comparison BattleEye doesn’t install without your consent, it warns the user about the data it gathers before hand (no personal data, but still), you can cancel and uninstall at any time as well (and depending on the game you can play on servers with BattleEye OFF).
I agree. If the cost of no cheaters is this huge security risk then it’s not worth it.
They have to pay for Anti-Cheat monitoring so they choose the cheapest and f up way
Owned by Tencent.
Chinese video game company doesnt scan anything yeah sure
The same can be said about EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat).
lol… come on, is china.
lol… come on, is china.
its installed anti cheat when install Valorant
and Players can also remove it at will
so if Players choose to remove it at will, there is no Anti Cheat Anymore
yeah, the logic is stupid. defeats the whole purpose of anti cheat if player can remove it at will. meaning their reasoning to install this is straight out lie.
You can’t play online if you remove it.
Valorant is free to play multiplayer online game. meaning you are forced to install the anti cheat driver if you ever want to play the game at all if that the case.
its installed anti cheat when install Valorant
and Players can also remove it at will
so if Players choose to remove it at will, there is no Anti Cheat Anymore
Yeah, i don’t trust the chinks, thanks.
NOPE to DRM. JUST NOOOOOOOOOO
Well done, a robust anti-cheat solution is necessary in order to stop cheaters running rampant.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84df8688fb4ccf90b1d9302995c56cac3a1f7190a32d765572bb4dea1884417d.jpg
This guy craves attention. He posts comments that are intended to get a reaction. I doubt he even cares about the things that he is spewing.
Ya, blocked that re**rd long ago. I took him seriously for a few days, but the conclusion was clear. Just a troll, and I can’t be bothered with morons like that.
And of course, it seems I used a “naughty word”, so our DSOG parents are going to sanitize my post for me. Ah……. the smell of freedom.
I believe the blame for that lies with Google.
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https://youtu.be/WtNXw0ZBXRw
One of the most important parts of this is: Does it go away when you uninstall the game? What does it leave behind?
sh*t game
You can uninstall it and then what? You can still play?
I was about to call BS, but gave the benefit of the doubt. Then…
BULLSHIT!! grade A bullshit.
PR has always been a forte of communists they should ask Tencent how to do it better. Or it is as i personally believe, they know their player based if full of retards so they don’t mind to straight up lie to their faces knowing they will keep spending monies on skins.
Plus, asumming you are willing to accept this bs, i don’t care about “external” security firms i want asurance from Microsoft the makers of the only OS you support that this crap will not brake, but no mention of them at all.
Now i am patiently waiting for a future update of Win10 to brake it.
You guys really need to stop crying, cheating is a big issue in FPS games. There are people spending thousands just to be able to cheat, it’s a full time job that makes millions. If you don’t like it, don’t play the game, keep in mind that there are people that would kill to have this in their games. Did you not see how bad the cheating is in pubg? Stop acting like this driver is a huge security risk, anytime we use half of the programs on our computers we’re at a security risk, and don’t even get me started on google.
Your social score may have gone up china shill, but your IQ sure as hell didn’t. Now BEGONE!
GOG. DRM-free.
Already seen people bending over backwards to defend riot and say the only people complaining are cheaters. Holy sh*t those people must work for china
Better(worst)explanation here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/g02ggb/valorant_anticheat_starts_upon_computer_boot_and/