How riot games are fighting war against infiltrators of video games

There have always been video games, there were people ready to find ways to cheat. Amateurs has long deviated themselves to find weaknesses in games, and often the goal of developing cheating that they can share or sell. But since competitive games online became a legitimate profession, these hobbies have turned into an entire industry aimed at selling an unfair feature for those who want to pay.

Developing and selling video games cheating It can be a profitable workAnd the developers of video game in recent years have been forced to strengthen their anti -cheating teams, whose mission is to ban cheaters, neutralize the program they use, as well as follow the fraud developers. More companies They take to some extent controversial Step to publish insect control systems operating in NucleusThis means that they have the highest privileges in the operating system and can monitor everything that happens on the device that is running on the game.

One of the most prominent levels of anti -level levels is forefront,, Which was developed by riots, which make common Titles Like a multi -player battle game online Myths League and Online shooter the first person Brown.

“The forces of the forces are cheating to be visible,” said Philip Kosenas, director and chief anti -riot control, said mainly. Describe same As “literally anti -for the Hight” that was “placed on this ground for one unique purpose, it is a blocker from the online video games.”

Thanks to Vanguard and Anti-Chaat team led by Koskinas, riots prohibit thousands of cheaters Brown Every day, according to a joint chart with Techcrunch.

Riot efforts appear to be working. As of early 2025, the percentage was the percentage Brown “The rank” – in the sense of competitive matches – that have cheaters are now less than 1 % worldwide, The company says.

In an interview with Techcrunch, Koskinas detailed the various strategies used by the Riot Anti -Cheating Team to fight cheaters and fraud developers: take advantage of security features in the Windows operating system, and CompIns’ Comparive devices to prevent them from overcoming cheating communities, and playing psychological games in an effort to form Cheats.

“We can only make them look like fools.”

A large part of Koskinas and his team’s efforts stems from Vanguard to have the deepest level of access to the player’s computer. To get rid of cheaters, Vanguard benefits from some of the safety features already included in Windows.

First, Koskinas explained, the anti -fraud program “almost globally” imposes some of the most important security features in Windows, such as A reliable platform unitA safe safety component, and Safe shoe. These two techniques achieve whether the computer is modified or tampered with, such as malware or fraud, and prevents it from boot if so. After that, Vanguard checks that all computer drivers, which allow the operating system to communicate with devices, is updated to determine additional devices that can enable cheating. Finally, Vanguard prevents cheating from downloading and implementing code in Kernel Memory.

“Basically, it has benefited from all the safety features that Microsoft and Matractors benefited from operating devices to protect the operating system, and we use or impose it,” Koskinas told Techcrunch. “We must have a stadium where we can play. We have to impose a certain level of safety.”

But the cheaters’ fighting is not only related to technology; It is also related to the understanding of the cheaters themselves and how they work.

He said that the Kosenas team has a “reconnaissance arm”, with its basic responsibility to obtain threats and catalogs, which sometimes involve the acquisition of fraud. The team gets partially cheating using the sock doll identities that infiltrate the cheating developer and cheating developers for years, such as secret operations.

“We even went further to give counter -information to give up credibility. We will deny as if it was something (we are reflected in engineering), and explain how the anti -cheating technique works to prove that we know things.” “Then he took advantage of our way to something in the development, then sit there until it is launched, and allow it to get the users and then block everyone.”

Some fraud developers try to remain unimpressed by selling only for a few customers, and maintaining their products mainly as extremist or “distinguished” deception, as it calls them as Kosenas. Kosenas said this excellent fraud can cost thousands of dollars, and it is sold to a handful of customers only.

Cheating makers use this strategy to reduce the risk of selling to the Undcover RIOT employee, but also for customers who will be more careful about blatant cheating and exposing cheating.

Kosenas said that these developers mainly sell “the reputation of their lack of discovery.” He said that one of the “strongest weapons” for the anti -cheating team in the riot, is to distort the reputation of fraud, publicly by banning all their players, for example, or prohibiting all their players, or Screen footage It shows that it is inside the channels of the dispute.

He said: “We can only make them look like fools.”

Koskinas and his team should be keen not to go down strongly. By leaving a little cheating occurs, within the reasonable limits, riots can slow down players to get better fraud. He said: “If we hit every player every time, they will change the fraud until they find the player who has not been discovered.”

“To maintain stupid fraud, we prohibit slower,” he added.

To stop the perpetrators of repeated crimes, Vanguard “fingerprint” can uniquely define their devices to determine their devices uniquely – to make it difficult for this player to get new fraud and continue cheating.
In a more psychological strategy, Kosenas and his colleagues wander around CallAmong other things, “pathogens without minds”, which has “the inability to get good in this video game.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Cash tools box

Thanks to all of these techniques and strategies, almost most of the cheaters can now be divided into two categories. The first, which represents the majority of cheaters, is formed by those who “angry fraud” using cheap tools that are easy to discover. RIOT employees are ridiculed by this fraud “Download-A-Ban”, according to Kosenas.

He said: “A lot of cheaters, if you are thinking about it, they are young.” “Many of them have not yet grown up.

“They will return, they will prohibit, and they will do so at the end of each week for two or three years … and then, they will strike puberty, and this hopes that he will do it,” said Kosenas.

The second category of those who use excellent fraud is difficult to discover. Koskinas explains that these tools are known as “outer” fraud, because they depend on the use of actual devices, not just programs.

One type of outer fraud depends on the direct arrival attack (DMA). DMA fraud requires players to use specialized devices-a high speed thinking PCI Express cards – This expiltraates BrownA memory for a separate computer can check the game on custom devices, outside the Vanguard range.

By doing this, the separate computer can be used to determine other players; Things inside the game like walls, ammunition and weapons; Specifically, where there are players and elements on the map. This can also include invisible objects for players. After that, using the fixed -installed programs on the cards, cheating will create a radar on a second screen that they can look at to discover competing players – even if they are hidden – to gain an unfair feature.

A more advanced version of this type of fraud, according to Koskinas, depends on HDMI’s Mazarers, which receives what the separate computer reads the main screen of chef. In this way, cheating does not have to look between the computer screens to know the location of their opponents, allowing them to focus on the show they play with the game.

These techniques allow cheated to see walls – known as “Wallhacks– Give what is indicated in the name ofAdditional perception“The great powers are mainly inside the game.

“I think we are mostly discovered today, but it is a kind of repetition,” said Kosenas.

Then there is a fraud in the screen reader, where the HDMI output is sent to the computer to a second computer that discovers and classifies what is on the game’s display, such as the head of the opponent’s player. The second computer then sends instructions to a small computer to control the robots, for example, connected to the chef hammer and allows the player automatically to other players-a kind of fraud known as “AimbotAs Kosenas said, “The mouse, for all intentions and purposes, is subject to a machine.”

If the fraud is working well, it may be difficult to discover, but Kosenas said it is in the long run, “cheating does not appear” as a human player “because of the accuracy of their goal and shoots their competitors.

“You have to press (fraud) to the point that the feature is not perceived by what a person can do,” said Kosenas. “As soon as you are there, you are not really cheating enough to make him deserve all this effort for most users.”

Until then, this technique is common, recognized by Kosenas. The downside is that it requires an expensive possible second computer with a quick graphics processor to classify what is happening quickly on the screen and send instructions again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

The future of fraud

Kosenas says it is often worried about the use of artificial intelligence to classify the screen, to find out the shape of human inputs, and how to reproduce them.

He said, “This is already here.” “Especially in Brown Through these bright outline, you can do it almost with algorithm (…) “ As for the context, the characters have repetition Distinguished and vital color schemes.

Despite the risks of security and privacy associated with ATM technology that has a nucleus level, RIOT does not have plans to stay away from its approach to its anti -healing engine, at least for courage. Otherwise, it is easy for cheating to use the nucleus exploits, according to Koskinas.

In general, Kosenas tries to be more transparent about riot efforts, including publishing numerous Blog Pillars On how the company notes the cheaters, as well as talking to journalists. He said that the idea is that since Riot has “the most anti -conquest of invasions by asking people to provide service at all times”, the players deserve to know how the company uses this privilege.

“The best thing I feel we can do in ordering this level of arrival and existence like this is transparent about the outcome that we can,” said Kosenas.

“We do not tell you what is under the cap, but we will tell you almost anything else,” he said.