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Riot Games is taking fighting cheating in Valorant to another level. The company has upgraded its Vanguard anti-cheat system with new tools that can effectively render expensive cheating hardware useless, turning some setups into what Riot jokingly called “$6K paperweights.” Some users report being completely unable to boot into Windows following the change.
Vanguard has always been one of the most aggressive anti-cheat systems in gaming. Since it operates at the kernel level, it has deep access to a player’s operating system, allowing Riot to detect cheats that some anti-cheat software would miss (the most obvious comparison is VAC for games like Counter-Strike. The kernel-level approach has sparked controversy over the years, but Riot clearly believes it is necessary to fight modern cheating methods.
Vanguard is reportedly blocking “the majority of” DMA firmware cheats
The latest update focuses on DMA cheats, short for Direct Memory Access cheats. These are much harder to detect because they run on separate hardware instead of directly on the gaming PC itself. Simply put, the cheat hardware reads the game’s memory externally, helping players avoid traditional anti-cheat detection.
Vanguard now targets the firmware connected to these cheating devices, specifically through SATA and NVMe systems. Riot reportedly worked with motherboard manufacturers like MSI, ASUS, and ASRock to improve detection methods.
Once Vanguard detects this type of cheating hardware, it can trigger warnings and block communication between the cheat device and the PC. This leaves the DMA hardware unusable unless they completely reinstall Windows.
While many competitive players are celebrating the move, the update is also raising fresh concerns about how powerful Vanguard has become. Because the anti-cheat runs at such a deep system level, some users are uncomfortable with software having the ability to alter firmware behavior or potentially interfere with hardware communication.
Still, Riot appears fully committed to its current approach. Competitive online games continue struggling with increasingly advanced cheating methods, and companies are becoming more aggressive in response. For now, one thing is clear: Riot wants cheaters to know that simply buying expensive hardware cheats may no longer be enough to stay undetected in Valorant.