Believe it or not, four years have already passed since Riot Games released Vanguard on Valorant. The anti-cheat system was introduced to the game four months after its full release, which dates back to June 2020. To celebrate the date, Riot Games posted a rundown of Vanguard’s performance in Valorant.
According to Riot Games’ latest announcement, Vanguard has been used to ban around 3,6 million accounts just for cheating – roughly a ban every 37 seconds. This data doesn’t include additional actions taken against botting, boosting, or intentionally queuing with cheaters.
Three methods are used to ban Valorant accounts, as explained below:
- Detection: Delayed suspension for an account identified as a re-offender.
- Manual: Ban issued by an agent after manual review.
- Hardware: Ban issued after detecting a cheat asset.
As seen in the chart, Valorant is taking action on more cheating accounts than ever before. This is due to various reasons, mainly because the game has grown in popularity. According to Riot Games’ report, the team’s “automated detections are carrying a heavier load than our hardware actioning.” This has been a “deliberate choice” as the team is testing and releasing additional methods to create a better and safer environment in Valorant.
Despite the growth in the number of cheaters in Valorant, the number of actions taken compared to the number of games with a cheater has evened out. The report also included a graphic explaining how long it takes to ban a cheater: from 12 to 15 matches.
As explained in the blog post, sometimes it’s worth waiting. This happens when the team detects suspicious activity that’s playing around the line of cheating. It’s then that the team applies Vanguard Restrictions, a system that implements extra security requirements that make cheating harder. Basically, these restrictions push the player to update their current Windows patch to a more recent version, as older versions are “more prone to vulnerabilities that can be used to get code into the kernel.”
According to Riot Games’ report, the team is “doing research into the viability of issuing Vanguard Restrictions to enforce Virtual-Based Security (VBS) and Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI), two newer security features which allow Windows to further secure the kernel from malware or exploitation.”
As of now, Riot Games is fighting against a newer form of cheating that uses Direct Memory Access (DMA) tools. Using an external tool, cheaters manipulate memory, which makes it harder for Windows to detect tampering. Riot is already looking for ways to fight against this.
However, as mentioned in the report's graphics, the studio is aware that the number isn’t zero and will never be. Here’s what the report said regarding the utopia of banning a cheater straight after being spotted and why isn’t possible:
Many times, we’re able to immediately detect when a cheater has entered the game, but we don’t immediately ban them, because this will present an opportunity for the cheat developers to A/B test our detections. If we banned cheaters immediately, all a cheat developer would have to do is change their cheat, get a new account (reminder to please secure your account), and see if they get banned. Rinse and repeat. They’ll quickly figure out how we detected them, build around that, and sell their cheat as “undetected” for the 34th time.
Therefore, Riot Games expect cheaters; they know they are there. Still, having them there is important to learn about their devices and ways of cheating so they can counter them, making cheat producers' jobs even harder.
Everything said until now was about Vanguard on Valorant’s PC version. However, Riot Games recently released the game for console devices. So, how does Vanguard work there?
Well, cheating on console is completely different than doing so on a PC. On a PC, it’s fairly easier, as consoles are more locked down by their first-party manufacturers, like Sony and Microsoft. Therefore, cheating on console is done by manipulating game inputs, also known as using mouse-and-keyboard to play on console.
In shooters like Valorant, having a smooth, quick, and precise aim is crucial. Under those terms, mouse-and-keyboard users have a huge advantage over console players, who use joysticks. While console Valorant includes aim assist features to help joystick players aim, using a mouse and keyboard to play on a console is still a massive advantage that’s impossible to cut down. This is the main reason why cross-play between console and PC doesn’t exist in Valorant as of yet.
Although the system doesn’t allow players to connect their mouse and keyboard to the console straight away, they use input spoofing devices that masquerade their devices to make them look like a legit controller. In Riot Games’ report, the developers admitted having cheated during the internal playtests which allowed them to capture data as ground truth, which allowed them to feel ready to launch the game on June 14.
Eventually, the first cheaters on console were captured and, as more information was collected, the team had even more knowledge to act in the future.