Explore the latest developments concerning Valorant anti-cheat update.
Valorant anti-cheat update soft-bricks $6,000 cheating hardware, company then trolls cheaters on social media — studio tweets 'congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight'
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Riot Games just delivered one of the most expensive bans in gaming history.
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Valorant cheaters have watched their $6,000 investment turned into paperweights overnight as Riot Games updated the Vanguard anti-cheat software to block DMA (Direct Memory Access) cheating devices. Not content with just banning the offenders, there are reports of Vanguard "bricking" the hardware used by cheaters, necessitating a full operating system reinstall. The claims are somewhat misleading since the anti-cheat system only renders certain hardware temporarily unusable. Users have reported that reinstalling the operating system brings everything back to normal; don't install Valorant or Vanguard on it again, or you'll face the same result.
Riot Games' Vanguard anti-cheat has begun turning cheaters' hardware into expensive paperweights
Riot Games, the studio behind League of Legends and Valorant, has released a major update to its proprietary Vanguard anti-cheat system, which works at the kernel level. The security software is now able to modify the firmware of NVMe and SATA storage drives and completely block the hardware that unscrupulous players use to cheat.
Riot Games, the studio behind League of Legends and Valorant, has released a major update to its proprietary Vanguard anti-cheat system, which works at the kernel level. The security software is now able to modify the firmware of NVMe and SATA storage drives and completely block the hardware that unscrupulous players use to cheat.
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Your SSD could be damaged by playing Valorant, but only if you are cheating
Reports of NVMe SSDs becoming unusable after a recent Valorant update have been circulating over the last couple of days. However, these reports went viral when Riot Games quoted a tweet suggesting those devices are now effectively paperweights, implying hardware-level damage. But things are not that simple.
Moreover, only users running cheats are affected, while the SSDs of normal players are working just fine. In this article, I'll explain what the issue is, who it affects, and more.
Read more: Windows Server 2025 adds native NVMe path, boosting SSD IOPS performance by 80%
Companies like Riot Games, Epic Games, and BattlEye have created powerful anti-cheat systems that run at the kernel level, making traditional software-based cheating next to impossible. This is where specialized hardware, such as PCIe Direct Memory Access (DMA) devices with custom firmware, comes into play.
For more detailed information, explore updates concerning Valorant anti-cheat update.
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