Riot Games, the studio behind League of Legends and Valorant, has released a major update to its proprietary Vanguard anti-cheat system, which works at the kernel level. The security software is now able to modify the firmware of NVMe and SATA storage drives and completely block the hardware that unscrupulous players use to cheat.
Riot Games, the studio behind League of Legends and Valorant, has released a major update to its proprietary Vanguard anti-cheat system, which works at the kernel level. The security software is now able to modify the firmware of NVMe and SATA storage drives and completely block the hardware that unscrupulous players use to cheat.
According to Insider Gaming, the developers have already confirmed the implementation of a radical new technology. It is designed to make the use of special devices for hardware cheating physically impossible.
The new update targets hardware bypasses via DMA (Direct Memory Access). This method allows the game’s memory to be read and modified directly from another, external device, bypassing the standard anti-cheat software on the user’s computer. To combat this, Riot Games has teamed up with leading motherboard manufacturers including MSI, ASRock, and ASUS.
Together, they taught Vanguard to detect specific drive firmware that enables DMA cheats. Once the violation is detected, the anti-cheat modifies the firmware files, which disrupts its operation and blocks the connection of the third-party device with the original system using IOMMU (I/O Memory Management Unit) technology.
After blocking, scammers see a red screen with mocking messages. One of them suggests contacting the cheat developer for a refund due to the incompatibility of the program with the BANNED account status. Riot Games representatives also ironically commented on the situation on social networks, addressing buyers of expensive hacking hardware: «Congratulations to the owners of brand new $6,000 paperweights.»
The Vanguard anti-cheat has been a hot topic in the gaming community since its release for the tactical shooter Valorant and later League of Legends. Players and cybersecurity experts criticized the system for accessing the operating system too deeply (at the Ring 0 kernel level) and expressed concerns about data privacy and PC stability.
