Valorant comes with its own root kit to prevent cheating

Posted on Thursday, April 16 2020 @ 14:22 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
OS News issues a warning about Valorant, the new game from League of Legends developer Riot Games. Beta testing of this game started recently but one of the remarkable aspects is that Valorant comes what is basically a root kit.

To prevent cheating, the game developer implemented a Windows kernel driver that has full access to your system, even when you're not running the game. The developer claims this is totally safe and won't be exploited:
According to Riot Games, we just have to trust them on their blue eyes that their kernel driver is fully secure and won’t be exploited by malicious third parties, and that the company won’t use it to spy on people or otherwise violate their privacy. Riot states on Reddit that “multiple external security research teams” have reviewed the driver, but as far as I can tell, these reviews have not been published for public vetting.

What we’re dealing with here is a rootkit, a method more and more anti-cheat systems are employing in the fight against cheating. The argument is that game developers need full, complete, and total access to your system in order to prevent you from cheating, and a kernel driver is how they do it.
As OS News points out, Riot Games is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, which is known to share data with the Chinese government.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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