Riot Games‘ kernel-level anti-cheat, Vanguard, has received an update that is allegedly altering system firmware to remove the ability of the user to access certain hardware associated with cheating.

Riot Games quoted one post discussing the anti-cheat, replying “congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight.” But how exactly does Vanguard’s new system make “paperweights” out of hardware?

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[–] 135 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Yeah your game is so important that you get to destroy people's hardware? Shit should be illegal.

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  • [–] 59 points 3 months ago

    A kernel level anticheat is basically spyware in all but name and stated benign purpose. This if true is getting on the malware territory. Like who is responsible on the case of false positives.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago

    This was debunked, I think. It apparently doesn't permanently brick anything, and mainly targets extra hardware bought primarily for cheating.

    Fuck Riot though. Glad 2XKO is not doing too hot.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Read the article, it doesnt brick anything, the 6k paperweight comment is "reffering to valorant cheating devices that no longer work" whatever tf that means

    Once again the news is spreading a clickbaity headline and everyone reads just that then sprints to the comments

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  • [–] 92 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Shouldn't that be insanely illegal? This is literally malware. Even if someone is outright hacking into your servers, you can't just hack back and ruin their system. There's a reason the legal side is not supposed to resort to illegal actions, the fuck.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    While I agree with you this should be illegal, on the other side they have my sympathy. Also I think cheating in online games ruining others fun and the company should be illegal too. I mean why is that not illegal still is beyond me. It's not even illegal for companies developing and selling this shit. But to comeback to your point about the illegality to brick hardware through a videogame, I agree with you.

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  • [–] 59 points 3 months ago

    Reckless behavior. Don’t trust a game company to exercise this extreme level of control over a device that you are supposed to own.

    Just say no to kernel anti-cheat.

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  • [–] 48 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    That's definitely too heavy handed. It's not uncommon for anti cheat to flag someone erroneously, and to just hand an executioner the ability to nuke your computer without any form of redress is asinine and anti consumer, if not criminal.

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  • [–] [S] 24 points 3 months ago*

    Yup, these systems have a history of false positives and flagging legitimate programs as cheating software and messing with a users system, using cheat software or not, to this extent is just absolutely wrong.

    It's a big reason for me why I stopped buying and playing these types of games.

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  • [–] 44 points 3 months ago

    People say they won't switch to linux because it can't play every game.

    Meanwhile games that don't run on linux do shit like this.

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  • [–] 43 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    They sound quite smug now, let's see when it inevitably triggers on someone's legitimate hardware.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 months ago

    The ability to detect the firmware necessary for the cheats comes after collaboration between Riot and various motherboard manufacturers such as MSI, ASRock, and ASUS.

    "Our games are so important that we need your help to break devices that your customers plug in to your products"

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  • [–] 25 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    This should spook the hell of anyone still playing anything that relies on that. Imagine have that kind of malware running in your system, with kernel-level priviledges, that could simply fuck up your hardware if it thinks you might be cheating.

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  • [–] 25 points 3 months ago

    While I am in favor of removal of cheaters from pretty much every online space, I'm not in favor of any company having that kind of power. Only I should be able to brick my devices.

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  • [–] 20 points 3 months ago

    What dummies. Even if you are cheating, violating a TOS doesn't give them the right to violate the law.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    CLICKBAIT Why does the article name itself that when it shows a tweet from valorant of them clarifying that they are NOT bricking your PCs???

    I don't like kernel level anti cheats, but I'm happy the people who decided to run Valorant with DMA cheats now have an expensive paperweight (the cheat device, not their pc).

    They even say you can still use the cheat hardware on other games if you disable IOMMU on your motherboard, but you cant on valorant.

    Slightly confusing wording, but I believe they arent bricking any hardware, just stopping it from working for cheating on their game.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    This is a later clarification. First tweet just told people it would turn their device into "paperweights", which is usually synonymous with "bricking" to a lot of people who mod hardware with custom firmware and such. And the original article talked about how it worked by messing with firmware, it was not even clear whether they talked about only the cheating device firmware or the usual PC components it's connected on.

    Now, with the clarification, it seems the thing they're doing is way milder than what they hinted at and isn't even doing anything permanent (I think?)

    Sure, the article should be retitled following the new info though. Leaving it like that is dishonest.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 months ago

    I hate cheaters. I think they should be banned from every single multiplayer game, or restricted to a pool of only other cheaters. With that said, no one has the right to disable your hardware remotely, especially over a piece of entertainment software. Use Linux, refuse kernel-level malware...

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    What a terribly written article.

    So it's bricking an external piece of cheating hardware and not users' actual PCs, or...?

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Only the external cheating hardware, it's very misleading (as evidenced by 95% of the commenters on the post thinking its the PC getting bricked)

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago

    So they have been handed some Oday exploits by mainboard manufacturers and are actively exploiting it and somehow I have to like it.

    God I hate modern IT.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago

    Riot already clarified it's not bricking hardware. They just posted a picture of dedicated cheat/DMA hardware, that's useless now, because it cannot be used for Valorant.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago

    Don't worry, it'll only go off if it thinks you're cheating.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago

    this is malware, i dont even care if its to stop cheaters.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago

    RIP the false positives. o7

    Note: don't play Riot Games games.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago

    Vanguard, has received an update that is allegedly altering system firmware to remove the ability of the user to access certain hardware associated with cheating.

    No. No. absolutely not. You are not allowed to alter my system firmware. Absolutely not.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    Congrats to the devs! They won the scumbag race against cheaters. Hope they‘re proud.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I'm having a hard time understanding this piece. How is updating the system's firmware causing bricked hardware? Is the new firmware purposefully useless?

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    That's because what it actually does is change your system firmware so that a physical piece of hardware commonly used for cheating will no longer connect and be available. It doesn't actually brick anything. It prevents a handshake. It'd be like if a piece of software was able to go in and unmount your hard drive. Nothing is wrong with your computer. Nothing is wrong with the hard drive. They just don't talk to each other anymore.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I can't speak to false positives but it would target an external gpu or other device connected for the purpose of cheating. The user can just disable iommu in bios and still use their cheating hardware outside of vanguard protected games.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    On one side, I love how it breaks cheaters hardware, should not have cheated… eh?

    On the other side, worried that it might and will break non-cheaters hardware sooner or later.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I would rather have cheaters in my games personally x)

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    [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Just another reason to boycott such software.

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