Lastest Riot Vanguard Update Can Brick Your Hardware (If You're a Cheater)
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?
https://insider-gaming.com/lastest-riot-vanguard-update-can-brick-your-hardware-if-youre-a-cheater/Open linkView original on lemmy.world121
Comments51
Yeah your game is so important that you get to destroy people's hardware? Shit should be illegal.
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.
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.
Read the article, it doesnt brick anything, the 6k paperweight comment is "reffering to valorant cheating devices that no longer work" whatever tf that means
Once again the news is spreading a clickbaity headline and everyone reads just that then sprints to the comments
I'm against any kind of kernel level anticheat FOR A GAME.
These kinds of things aren't there to make then better for you. It's there to protect investor's money.
They shouldn't have access to you're system and I'd imagine vast majority of people don't have a clue what this means.
I didnt say anything about any of that, I said you didnt read the article, you just reacted to a false headline
You got ragebaited
Oh and I just realized. I meant kernel level anticheat should be illegal. I didn't make myself clear. I apologize. I run Linux though, so doesn't affect me. :-D
Not raged at all. :-) just making a point. Speaking my side. Not disagreeing with you
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.
While I agree with you this should be illegal, on the other side they have my sympathy. Also I think cheating in online games ruining others fun and the company should be illegal too. I mean why is that not illegal still is beyond me. It's not even illegal for companies developing and selling this shit. But to comeback to your point about the illegality to brick hardware through a videogame, I agree with you.
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.
That's definitely too heavy handed. It's not uncommon for anti cheat to flag someone erroneously, and to just hand an executioner the ability to nuke your computer without any form of redress is asinine and anti consumer, if not criminal.
Yup, these systems have a history of false positives and flagging legitimate programs as cheating software and messing with a users system, using cheat software or not, to this extent is just absolutely wrong.
It's a big reason for me why I stopped buying and playing these types of games.
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.
They sound quite smug now, let's see when it inevitably triggers on someone's legitimate hardware.
They’re Riot Games. They’ll always be smug.
They already probably did, and I don't they care, good luck winning that legal case.
"Our games are so important that we need your help to break devices that your customers plug in to your products"
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
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.
What dummies. Even if you are cheating, violating a TOS doesn't give them the right to violate the law.
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.
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...
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.
What a terribly written article.
So it's bricking an external piece of cheating hardware and not users' actual PCs, or...?
Only the external cheating hardware, it's very misleading (as evidenced by 95% of the commenters on the post thinking its the PC getting bricked)
And they're not even bricking the cheating devices, just blocking them using hardware features that can be disabled (as long as you don't want to run vanguard).
It's not physically bricking anything. It's a firmware modification that prevents two pieces of hardware from talking to each other.
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.
Don't worry, it'll only go off if it thinks you're cheating.
RIP the false positives. o7
Note: don't play Riot Games games.
this is malware, i dont even care if its to stop cheaters.
No. No. absolutely not. You are not allowed to alter my system firmware. Absolutely not.
Congrats to the devs! They won the scumbag race against cheaters. Hope they‘re proud.
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.
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
Oh, I would never install that, but people who consider it important to have might be more resistant to this change.
On one side, I love how it breaks cheaters hardware, should not have cheated… eh?
On the other side, worried that it might and will break non-cheaters hardware sooner or later.
I think even breaking hardware that you know is only for cheating should still never be done. It's a game, it does not matter that much. Hopefully this results in a lawsuit
seriously. surely they can fingerprint the offender's PC and just ban both the account and the PC fingerprint.
You know the later will happen so frequently that it barely makes up benefits of the former.
I would rather have cheaters in my games personally x)
Just another reason to boycott such software.