How Riot Games is tackling the rise of video game cheaters

In the event you’ve ever performed a aggressive on-line sport, likelihood is you’ve come throughout a cheater. For so long as video video games have existed, folks have tried to bend the foundations for an edge. Up to now, this was typically only a passion — a method for tech-savvy players to point out off. Nevertheless, with on-line gaming now a severe business, the place some make actual cash by means of competitions and streaming, dishonest has turn into a profitable business. Builders like Riot Video games are taking a powerful stand to battle again.

Vanguard is Riot’s secret weapon towards cheats

Riot Video games — recognized for standard titles like League of Legends and Valorant — has constructed a robust anti-cheat system known as Vanguard to guard its video games. This technique runs on the kernel level, that means it has extra deep entry to your pc than most apps. It could actually verify for suspicious exercise and cease cheat programmes earlier than they even begin.

Phillip Koskinas, Riot’s Head of Anti-Cheat, describes himself as somebody who was “put on this earth to ban cheaters.” Beneath his management, Vanguard is doing simply that — on daily basis, hundreds of cheaters are banned from Valorant. Riot says that, as of early 2025, fewer than 1% of Valorant ranked video games globally contain cheaters — a significant win within the battle for honest play.

However what makes Vanguard so efficient? It doesn’t simply block cheats — it makes use of Home windows’ safety instruments to detect them. Options just like the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and Secure Boot are used to make sure your system hasn’t been tampered with. Vanguard additionally checks that your machine’s drivers are updated and appears for indicators of dishonest {hardware}. If one thing appears suspicious, it could cease cheats earlier than they launch.

Koskinas says, “We use all the same tools Microsoft uses to protect the system. We need to keep the environment secure to do our job.”

Reporting in from Guide Ban HQ, the place we are able to now manually verify hundreds of accounts per minute for $400 DMA cheats (manually) pic.twitter.com/sZUKku5P4V

— Phillip Koskinas (@deteccphilippe) January 23, 2025

Infiltrating cheat communities from the within

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq6DmUF1Dzk

Stopping cheaters isn’t solely about tech — it’s additionally about folks. Riot has a workforce devoted to understanding how cheat builders work. This “reconnaissance arm” quietly joins on-line cheat teams utilizing faux identities. Some faux accounts have been lively within the dishonest group for years.

In some instances, Riot even shares anti-cheat info with these teams to construct belief. By pretending to be a part of the dishonest scene, they’ll get early entry to new cheats and quietly observe who makes use of them. As soon as the cheat spreads, Riot bans everybody who makes use of it.

This undercover technique helps them catch even the so-called “premium” cheats—costly, hard-to-get software program offered to only some customers. These cheats can value hundreds of {dollars} and are designed to keep away from detection. However even these builders have a weak spot: their repute.

Koskinas says that one in every of Riot’s strongest techniques is making cheat creators look silly. That may imply banning all their customers without delay or leaking proof that Riot was inside their personal discussion groups. “We can just make them look like fools,” he provides.

A fragile stability between detection and technique

Curiously, Riot doesn’t goal to catch each cheater immediately. Doing so might push customers to modify to new, undetected cheats quicker. By permitting small quantities of dishonest for a short time, Riot can examine how these techniques work and ban them extra successfully in the long term.

“If we hit every player every time, they’ll just switch cheats,” Koskinas explains. Slowing them down helps Riot keep one step forward.

The battle towards dishonest will doubtless by no means finish. However with a mixture of robust know-how, intelligent technique, and deep understanding of the dishonest world, Riot is displaying that it’s potential to maintain on-line gaming honest — and enjoyable — for everybody.