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?
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…
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.
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.
Just another reason to boycott such software.
this is malware, i dont even care if its to stop cheaters.
I would rather have cheaters in my games personally x)
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.
RIP the false positives. o7
Note: don’t play Riot Games games.
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.
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?
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.
So the headline is just hyperbole? What a weird editorial choice
Agreed. Headlines more and more rely on outrage for clicks.
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.
nah they genuinely don’t care about anything like this
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.
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.
… But what if I want to virtualize something not related to cheating?
Do that and uninstall riot’s garbage
Congrats to the devs! They won the scumbag race against cheaters. Hope they‘re proud.
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.
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.
