Valorant is currently ruining the fun for many fans with its controversial anti-cheat tool Vanguard. However, Riot refuses to reduce its powers and instead wants to better optimize the anti-cheat program Vanguard. They are even paying a lot of money for it.
What is the problem with Valorant’s anti-cheat? Valorant uses the tool Vanguard as an anti-cheat measure. This includes, among other things, a driver named “vgk.sys” that starts when you boot your computer and checks if you have any nasty cheats running. If it catches any, the game cannot be started.
Since the driver interferes deeply with the system and even has admin rights, many users feel this is going too far. The driver behaves essentially like harmful malware, and many users do not like it when unknown software meddles in their system and possibly collects and sends data.
Although vgk.sys can be removed, Valorant then says “No anti-cheat, no game” and does not start at all. So if you want to play the beta of Valorant, you have to endure the invasive anti-cheat, which annoys fans.
Fans are concerned about Vanguard, and Riot explains everything again
This is how fans react: The anti-cheat client has been a thorn in the side of fans since it was first announced, and due to recent events, the discussion has reignited. For instance, a CS:GO pro who wanted to try Valorant was kicked out of the game by Vanguard and banned because he had connected his phone to the PC.
Such incidents show fans that the anti-cheat software is far too severe and likely does much more than just search for harmful software. Therefore, some fans, despite their great enjoyment of the game, have uninstalled Valorant and hope that Riot will find a different solution for the anti-cheat software. On reddit, several such comments were heard:
Are there plans to change how Vanguard works so that it only runs when the game is active, rather than around the clock?
That is the only thing preventing me from downloading the game again at this time, and it’s really a shame because I enjoyed the 7 days I played this game.
But I can’t bring myself to download it again if this is how Vanguard is supposed to function.
User Exe_Cution on Reddit
Another player fears that other developers will now implement such invasive anti-cheat tools:
The problem is that you have just opened Pandora’s box because now other developers will follow suit. Once we have 20 of these things [anti-cheat drivers] running on our computers, the likelihood that one of them enables a zero-day exploit is extraordinarily high.
User Xalara on Reddit
…not to mention that Vanguard is useless against emerging aimbots that use computer vision. The cheat exists on a different computer and inserts itself at the mouse and keyboard level. There is nothing Vanguard can do to detect it, and the existing heuristics for detecting anomalous inputs are at best mediocre.
This is what Riot says about it: The developers responded to the users’ questions and concerns and tried to reassure them. However, they also made it clear that there will likely be no relaxation in the use of Vanguard:
I cannot speak about the future of Vanguard, but the Vanguard driver is designed to run at system startup. It will not collect any information until you run Valorant.
The idea is to ensure that Vanguard is not manipulated, and to make that work, it must run at system startup.
If Vanguard only runs when Valorant is running, there would be the possibility to modify your system (or your drivers) in such a way that you might be able to manipulate Vanguard.
If you do not agree with that, that’s okay. It would be a shame to see you go if you enjoyed the game, but I respect your decision and hope you can find a game that you enjoy more.
RiotRedHerring, Security Programmer at Riot Games
Regarding cheats that are accessed via external PCs, the developers added: “Vanguard does not have to be perfect to represent a useful system.”
Riot offers a reward of over €90,000 for bugs in Vanguard
This is what Riot still wants to do: To alleviate the concerns of fans, the developers have also published a detailed blog post explaining once again why the anti-cheat software will definitely remain as it is for now.
It is simply important to ensure the best possible protection against cheats, and Vanguard, with its current operation, is just the best option. However, it was reiterated that Vanguard does not collect and share data that is not related to combating cheats.
This is how Riot wants to improve Vanguard: In order to prevent such serious bugs – like the recent incident with the phone – from occurring again, they want to continuously improve Vanguard and hope for the cooperation of the community. Riot has therefore set up a reward for reporting bugs in Vanguard.
They are primarily looking for bugs that affect system security or user privacy. For such bugs, they want to offer more than €90,000 as a reward if you find a bug that allows the execution of malicious code at the kernel level.
How much a found bug is worth will be determined by Riot on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, you must inform Riot about the bug and provide a detailed report. You can find specific details about the bug bounty rewards on the associated Riot Games page.
Bugs and strange occurrences are, of course, nothing new in Valorant. Recently, a bizarre incident caught attention. Some players were able to shoot through walls and around corners using a specific technique with a camera and get kills. Read here all about this curious bug and what it looks like in the game when such things happen.
