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A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

riotgames.com

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Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#51

Post by SpaceManNabs »

judge2020 wrote: post #45
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #9

I skimmed, but it seems none of this addressed why the service (edit) runs at boot-time? Also, expecting a service to not not look at your data if they have access is not security. If Valve can mitigate hacking in CSGO without such an intrusive service, I am sure Riot can. I, myself, did a very, very, very poor job with an autoencoder to detect anomalous matches in Dota and caught a large amount of players abusing th…

It actually doesn't look like the service is always running (although the kernel driver is). I haven't played Valorant since I started my PC, so the `vgc` service for vanguard has no status (and is in "manual" mode).

edited to be more careful with my words. thanks. Some users have reported it as always running, but I haven't seen any confirmation.

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#52

Post by learc83 »

sk0g wrote: post #6
lidHanteyk wrote: post #2

Folks should build alternative clients for Riot's games. Riot has demonstrated that they should not be trusted to write clients.

That is a lot more effort than re-building the game, isn't it? At that point, just make your own game, or easier yet, play another one.

I don't think it's a feasible plan, but there's probably some demand for that specific solution--people have friends who play riot games, so they want the ability to play those those specific games without the invasive anti-cheating software.

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#54

Post by saulr »

lol768 wrote: post #10
ds wrote: post #7

The inherent issue with anti cheats as compared to anti-virus software is user intention. A user who installs a anti virus program wants that program to do its job and find bad actors. The virus on the other hand is completely unwanted by both the user and the software- Its existence is threatened by all fronts. However, a anti-cheat lives in a extremely adversarial environment. The cheater (and the cheat) wants the…

> Years and years ago, I developed with a friend of mine a completely undetectable cheat for all games on the HL2 platform. > It involved a second computer, which man-in-the-middled all network data to the client computer. Out of interest, was there no transport level encryption to deal with here? Or did you need to do something special to capture keys on the client?

I believe newer Valve multiplayer games (e.g. Dota, CSGO) use Steam Networking instead of the game sending UDP itself. Packets sent with Steam Networking are encrypted[0].

Before CSGO moved to Steam Networking, the game itself encrypted the packets. I can't remember exactly when this was introduced, but it's still in place - see https://github.com/alliedmodders/hl2sdk/blob/acf932ae06b64b7...

[0] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/multiplayer/netw...

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#55

Post by cptroot »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #24
houzi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackers in standard CSGO games are rampant from what I understand. Serious players pay extra to queue up in a dedicated service for high tickrate servers and anti-cheats which I believe are rootkits as well.. not sure about any of this though.

rampant years ago. It took a long time to get where it is now. There are still cheaters here and there, but that is to be expected, and relatively rare in my experience.

To be clear, that's not because there are no cheaters. They've just finally implemented a behavior score and shadowbanned suspected cheaters and toxic players that way, with some help from the player- trained ML mentioned upthread.

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#56

Post by SpaceManNabs »

cptroot wrote: post #55
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rampant years ago. It took a long time to get where it is now. There are still cheaters here and there, but that is to be expected, and relatively rare in my experience.

To be clear, that's not because there are no cheaters. They've just finally implemented a behavior score and shadowbanned suspected cheaters and toxic players that way, with some help from the player- trained ML mentioned upthread.

If non cheaters do not play with cheaters, mission accomplished.

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#58

Post by blattimwind »

dharmab wrote: post #17
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you're running a dedicated PC for gaming That's the approach I've been taking for a long time now. If you don't, you will always a) have your fun ruined by trying to be security conscious b) in the end, most likely give in and allow things you really shouldn't allow on a trusted machine because otherwise you can't achieve your task (getting a game to run). So I have a game box, try to make sure that nothing…

My next gaming PC will run a Linux hypervisors and use PCI passthru to run Windows as a full-performance guest. Then if I need to use a web browser, I can switch to a Linux guest without interrupting the game.

Most anti-cheats and some "DRM solutions" do not allow you to run inside a VM, trying to mask the fact you do might be enough to get banned. Even with PCI passthru you can't expect full performance (CPU is also still virtualized).

It's much simpler to just have a second PC/laptop or dual-boot (less secure).

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#59

Post by Draiken »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #24
houzi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackers in standard CSGO games are rampant from what I understand. Serious players pay extra to queue up in a dedicated service for high tickrate servers and anti-cheats which I believe are rootkits as well.. not sure about any of this though.

rampant years ago. It took a long time to get where it is now. There are still cheaters here and there, but that is to be expected, and relatively rare in my experience.

It is absolutely still rampant. I could count at least 5 cheater encounters in the last 30 days (blatant cheaters, btw).

They try their best to isolate cheaters with a "trust factor" system but the reality is, unless you pay an external service with their own anti-cheat software (that's probably as bad as Valorant's) you will get a high amount of cheaters.

Given they have zero transparency on the trust factor system, I could have a lower factor than you (I definitely rage too much), so because of it I see them more often. But there's no way to know if I'm in the cheater bubble, or you're in the no-cheater bubble.

Re: A Message About Vanguard From Our Security and Privacy Teams

#60

Post by alias_neo »

blattimwind wrote: post #58
dharmab wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My next gaming PC will run a Linux hypervisors and use PCI passthru to run Windows as a full-performance guest. Then if I need to use a web browser, I can switch to a Linux guest without interrupting the game.

Most anti-cheats and some "DRM solutions" do not allow you to run inside a VM, trying to mask the fact you do might be enough to get banned. Even with PCI passthru you can't expect full performance (CPU is also still virtualized). It's much simpler to just have a second PC/laptop or dual-boot (less secure).

Simpler in a technical sense, but given high end gaming PC's run into the thousands of £s, It's not really the right solution to just buy another machine; the better choice is probably to not play their game (in all senses of the phrase).

Maybe a viable option is to hot swap your drives, and use something with firmware you can sign personally and verify on boot.

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