Riot responds to concerns over Valorant’s always-online anti-cheat software

Valorant, the hottest new game on Twitch with a title that often gets confused for an edgy erectile dysfunction pill, is having a pretty good year so far! Millions of people are interested in Riot Games’ new product, the competitive side is heating up and the 2020s look like they may be dominated by a neat fusion of Overwatch and Counterstrike Go.

So of course cheaters are rocking up to sour the experience for everyone. It’s not unusual for any high profile online shooter to have its fair share of unscrupulous players, people who have loaded up aim-bots and various other hacks with which they can dominate in a PC game for the weirdest of kicks. Riot is well aware of this, and their anti-cheating system is aggressive to say the least.

Called Riot Vanguard (another product that sounds like a topical cream), the program is an always-on slice of software with more privilege than a British duke hunting for foxes in the countryside. Valorant’s current closed beta audience is not happy with what they call a heavy-handed approach to keeping cheaters off of the game servers, especially with the software having administrator-level access on any machine it’s installed on.

Riot thinks otherwise, explaining that these measures nip the problem in the bud as cheaters usually find a way to bypass programs which only activate once a game has been booted up. “The anti-cheat driver itself is only one small component of Vanguard,” Riot’s anti-cheat lead Paul “RiotArkem” Chamberlain said to Kotaku.

We’ve also built a new backend that allows us to be more specific with our anti-cheat checks, instead of running the same security scans on all computers, we can run checks in response to player reports, or other suspicious behaviour which allows us to reduce the frequency and intensity of scans on the majority of players’ computers.

The main concern currently is the level of access that Vanguard has on a PC, with some Valorant players fearing that it could be taken control of and lead to a compromised home system. According to Chamberlain, Vanguard isn’t setting any precedents with its total access to a PC, as it follows in the digital footsteps of many a program that most computers make use of today. Vanguard is essentially a “very specialized antivirus program that only protects Valorant,” as Chamberlain explained.

All of Vanguard has been audited for security weaknesses by external audit firms as well as our internal security team, with a particular emphasis being placed on the kernel component. We’ve built it on a principle of ‘least privilege,’ where the driver has as few features and does as few things as possible. For example, the driver does not communicate with the internet or collect any information. All functions that can be done outside of the driver context are done by non-driver components.

This reduces the attack surface of the driver making it less likely that security vulnerabilities exist.

Ultimately, Riot’s not adverse to tweaking Vanguard in the future, especially if players can provide good reason for them to do so. “We invite players who are unsure to observe our actions and call us out if they don’t like what they see,” Chamberlain said. “We think most players will appreciate our efforts but if they don’t then we’ll change tactics and find another way to meet our player’s expectations.”

Last Updated: April 15, 2020