Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

Post by anonymousab » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 12:16 PM UTC

skizm wrote: post #266

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #171

I hate to say this but a large percentage (in fact, I believe a majority) of gamers simply do not care about invasive anti-cheats. Right now CounterStrike players are mostly begging Valve for kernel-level anti-cheat since their current solution isn't working at all. If anything, this warning will actually make many player's more impressed with the game. That said, more consumer information is almost always better in…

As a counter strike player, I definitely shy away from the invasive anti cheat stuff… but I’d let valve inject it into my veins if it meant I could actually play and not suspect everyone of cheating all the time. Mostly because Valve has earned my trust. I won’t install games from other companies using similarly invasive techniques though.

Post by Arch-TK » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 12:19 PM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #457

Arch-TK wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason games companies reach for KLA is not because they're dumb and can't be bothered to secure their network protocols on the server side, it's because they don't want to have to hire an inordinate number of human reviewers to make unreliable decisions on whether someone is cheating or not in their game. While KLA is fundamentally flawed (DMA and even CV based cheats are becoming more popular as a result of KLA…

> Want FPS without cheaters? Encourage people to do DIY matchmaking again, DIY server hosting and DIY administration. Yes. This is the answer. There is no solution that relies only on technology that will fix human problems at scale. You can make it harder, but once one person figures it out, everyone has access to it. You need to break it into pieces and let people deal with it on the community level, where communit…

Post by remnantdiving » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 12:22 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #435

gspetr wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you truly expect any steam games to have anything like a root kit that’d exfiltrate your credentials? https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/steam-game-mo... "Downfall, a fan expansion for the popular Slay the Spire indie strategy game, was breached on Christmas Day to push Epsilon information stealer malware using the Steam update system. Once installed on a compromised computer, the malware will collect…

That's not a steam game, that's a user mod (read: random binary downloaded from the internet and executed). Also, it doesn't need kernel level access to do any of that stuff, it can get by just fine with normal application level permissions. This is no different to downloading a random binary off the internet and being surprised it's malicious.

Post by anonymousab » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 12:24 PM UTC

nicce wrote: post #155

Rohansi wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency significantly reduces the effectiveness of culling via the server. There will always be a place for client side anti-cheat if games are running on players' computers.

Funnily, for example, using GeForce Now prevents almost all kind of cheats. Maybe the future of the competitive gaming is that you only use remote client for remote server which is hosted by the game company.

Post by nicce » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 12:34 PM UTC

anonymousab wrote: post #477

nicce wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, for example, using GeForce Now prevents almost all kind of cheats. Maybe the future of the competitive gaming is that you only use remote client for remote server which is hosted by the game company.

There are hardware cheating setups that utilize an external camera+device with basic image recognition and spoof a normal mouse over USB. From software's perspective, all you see on the client side is normal mouse inputs from a Logitech or razer mouse. At the very least, this is less capable than wallhacks from reading memory.