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?
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
What dummies. Even if you are cheating, violating a TOS doesn’t give them the right to violate the law.
Congrats to the devs! They won the scumbag race against cheaters. Hope they‘re proud.
Shouldn’t that be insanely illegal? This is literally malware. Even if someone is outright hacking into your servers, you can’t just hack back and ruin their system. There’s a reason the legal side is not supposed to resort to illegal actions, the fuck.
I dunno’, that’s kinda exactly what “scammer payback” does. Though that’s slightly different than them ‘just’ hacking you.
Still agreed that doing it over a video game is just crazy.
What a terribly written article.
So it’s bricking an external piece of cheating hardware and not users’ actual PCs, or…?
It’s not physically bricking anything. It’s a firmware modification that prevents two pieces of hardware from talking to each other.
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Yeah your game is so important that you get to destroy people’s hardware? Shit should be illegal.
This was debunked, I think. It apparently doesn’t permanently brick anything, and mainly targets extra hardware bought primarily for cheating.
Fuck Riot though. Glad 2XKO is not doing too hot.
A kernel level anticheat is basically spyware in all but name and stated benign purpose. This if true is getting on the malware territory. Like who is responsible on the case of false positives.
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.
Reckless behavior. Don’t trust a game company to exercise this extreme level of control over a device that you are supposed to own.
Just say no to kernel anti-cheat.
The ability to detect the firmware necessary for the cheats comes after collaboration between Riot and various motherboard manufacturers such as MSI, ASRock, and ASUS.
“Our games are so important that we need your help to break devices that your customers plug in to your products”
They sound quite smug now, let’s see when it inevitably triggers on someone’s legitimate hardware.
They already probably did, and I don’t they care, good luck winning that legal case.
They’re Riot Games. They’ll always be smug.
