The developers of League of Legends and Valorant are proud of their anti-cheat Vanguard. Unlike the competition, Riot’s games seem almost free of cheaters. Now the developers want to know and are putting a bounty on their own cheat defense.
What kind of anti-cheat is this? The anti-cheat “Vanguard” from Riot, which was first introduced with the release of Valorant, is feared among hackers. Hardly any cheater can cheat in one of Riot’s games for long without getting banned.
Even if a cheat works, Vanguard constantly monitors the game and can even terminate it if a cheater is caught in real time. While the anti-cheat still doesn’t work perfectly, many fans consider it the best protection in a game.
The anti-cheat software in other games, for example in the competition from Counter-Strike, repeatedly fails and is even trying to emulate Vanguard now. Riot itself now wants to find out how secure their cheat defense really is and has put a bounty on it.
This is how the year 2024 has started for League of Legends:
Bounty on its Own Software
What’s this bounty about? Riot has set rewards of up to nearly €95,000 as part of a so-called bounty program for bugs. To earn the money, hackers must manage to break the anti-cheat software from Riot.
However, a simple bug in Valorant is not enough for that. On the website hackerone.com, there are detailed descriptions of the targets that hackers must achieve to receive the bounty.
The most money is awarded if one manages to exploit the program to throw any player out of the round. The same amount of money is awarded for abusing the anti-cheat to disclose IP addresses of targets without being friends with them or in a round with them.
Similarly, a considerable reward is given if one can execute code on a victim’s computer without them having to click at all. However, Riot rewards every qualified submission on the website with at least around €235.
Doesn’t this play into the hackers’ hands? That Riot trusts its anti-cheat is undoubtedly a given. The bounty program aims to encourage interested hackers to work for better protection instead of developing their own cheats that would then diminish the player experience.
To prevent hackers from doing both, i.e., developing cheats and reporting them to earn double money, Riot prohibits the publication of found vulnerabilities. Those who do so will not receive a reward for their discovery. The competition from Valve is also continuing to strive against cheats: The new Steam hit Deadlock wants to deter cheaters directly, finding creative solutions
