Vanguard Bans Over 100,000 VALORANT Cheaters in 20 days

From December 22, 2024, to January 13, 2025, Riot Games’ anti-cheat system, Vanguard, has banned over 100,000 cheaters from VALORANT. Phillip Koskinas, Riot Games' Head of Anti-Cheat, revealed these figures via a graph uploaded to his X account on January 14th, underscoring Riot’s commitment to maintaining a fair competitive environment.

Multiple Methods to Identify Cheaters

The bans were executed using various Cheating Identification Methods:

1. Manual Bans: Handled by Riot's team of experts.
2. Machine Learning Behavioral Detection: Identifies suspicious activity during live gameplay.
3. Hitchhiking: Targets players queuing with known cheaters.
4. Cheating Using Known Cheats: Detects widely recognized cheat programs.
5. Repeat Offender Hardware Bans: Employs hardware fingerprinting to block repeat offenders.
6. Vanguard Tampering: Punishes attempts to manipulate or bypass the anti-cheat system.

Notable Trends in Ban Data

While the number of bans remained steady throughout the period, a notable spike occurred post-January 5, culminating in the highest daily bans on January 13. The majority of bans stemmed from cheating with known cheats and hardware bans, while Vanguard Tampering followed closely.

Interestingly, hitchhiking bans have seen a slight increase since the start of 2025, highlighting Riot's focus on targeting players complicit in cheating.

Insights into the Bans

Koskinas also provided the people with some answers and explanations on how the bans work. Speaking about the role of machine learning, Koskinas elaborated:

“We generally terminate if they're detected during a live game using a public method. For private cheats, we focus more on timing the cat-and-mouse game rather than immediate response.”

He added that machine learning models are primarily effective against blatant rage hackers, stating,

“Models usually pick up only ‘obvious’ rage hackers, and as it turns out, cheaters of that variety haven’t bothered to hide from Vanguard in the first place. So, Vanguard just sorta ‘wins’ the race condition for the ban.”

However, Koskinas refrained from detailing Vanguard tampering detection, citing security concerns:

“It would be unwise to enumerate all the ways in which one could tamper with Vanguard that we currently detect.”

Riot Games’ multi-pronged approach showcases their commitment to delivering a fair and secure gaming environment for all VALORANT players. With continuous improvements to Vanguard, Riot sets a high standard for anti-cheat systems in competitive gaming.

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Featured Image Source: Riot Games

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