Current Events > Riot deploys what is called Kernel level 'Malware 'Anti-Cheat' to League players

(+) Yeah! (+)

The gist of it is that it is always running and making connections and sending encrypted data. It runs at the Kernel level. While other games like Counter Strike have anti-cheat at the Kernel level, you can turn them off and they only do things when you play the game and do less things. This is always doing stuff and if you turn it off you have to reboot the computer to play Riot games again.
See synopsis by The PC Security guy in the video.

https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-gb/news/game-updates/patch-14-9-notes/

With 14.9, Vanguard, Riots proprietary Anti-Cheat system will be deployed and active in League of Legends. This means that active enforcement of Vanguard will be in effect and working hard to make sure your queues are free from scripters, botters, and cheaters! We recently released a blog detailing the why behind bringing Vanguard to League that you can check out here. Its a bit of a long read, but it does have some pictures.

If youre wondering what all you need to do to keep playing League, all you need to do is install Vanguard. If you do not have Vanguard installed when you launch the Riot Client or League it will prompt you to install it and then restart your system to ensure Vanguard is active. You will be unable to queue for or play League until Vanguard is installed and active.

If you run into any issues please check out our support articles for any troubleshooting needs involving Vanguard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqLI1xKc-L4

That's gonna fuck up a lot more than they think.

League IS malware.

It's scummy and gross, but unfortunately this kind of thing is bound to come hand-in-hand with professional gaming. Once large sums of money start trading hands and reputations are on the line, it gets serious.

DrizztLink posted...

That's gonna fuck up a lot more than they think.

Looking and this has been deployed to Valorant players since 2020, but yes people are saying many older PC people play League on will mess up.

ArkhamOrigins posted...

League IS malware.

It is now a factual statement.

LinkDaLunatic posted...

It's scummy and gross, but unfortunately this kind of thing is bound to come hand-in-hand with professional gaming. Once large sums of money start trading hands and reputations are on the line, it gets serious.

See the video. The things this does aren't necessary. Counter Strike has anti-cheat and it doesn't require as much permissions, remain always on, or break your game until you reboot if you turn it off.

LinkDaLunatic posted...

is bound to come hand-in-hand with professional gaming. Once large sums of money start trading hands and reputations are on the line, it gets serious.

I agree with this in some sense but also... the vast vast majority of people playing league are not professional players and there is no money involved

DrizztLink posted...

That's gonna fuck up a lot more than they think.

no it wont, its been on valorant for forever. linux users will be affected and thats only about 800 users total

this isn't a big deal and no one actually cares

I am against doing things that could potentially decrease the number of people playing League, for the simple reason that League is basically a quarantine, and if those people can't play it, they will then go and inflict themselves on other games instead.

darkphoenix181 posted...

See the video. The things this does aren't necessary. Counter Strike has anti-cheat and it doesn't require as much permissions, remain always on, or break your game until you reboot if you turn it off.

I should have been more clear: I don't agree with this -or- think it's necessary. What I do think is it was bound to happen eventually and I'm surprised it took this long. It's yet another part of the massive enshittification campaign.

kirbymuncher posted...

I agree with this in some sense but also... the vast vast majority of people playing league are not professional players and there is no money involved

But it would be very difficult for those poor, itty bitty corporations to have to do more work than just yeeting a mass change into the audience. You want them to pass out tee-shirts when they can just fire them at the crowd with the tee-cannon?

According to this video there was a Kernel Anti-Cheat that got caught mining Bitcoin on people's PCs. Riot has also been hacked before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUnbQSWWOos

Maybe I'm out of touch with League, but scripts aren't that big of an issue to warrant an anti cheat are they? Like unless it's banning people inting games I don't see the point.

Chewisbeast posted...

Maybe I'm out of touch with League, but scripts aren't that big of an issue to warrant an anti cheat are they? Like unless it's banning people inting games I don't see the point.

Banjo Tooie on the Xbox disabled saving and achievements if you used the in-game cheat codes which sucked because some were pretty funny.

The Brickening Beings.
https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/vanguard-just-went-live-and-lol-players-are-already-claiming-its-bricking-their-pcs

Vanguard has finally arrived in League of Legends, and nearly immediately the online community has been awash with players claiming their computers have been bricked by the kernel-level program and its activity.
The claims , which were mainly shared on X (formerly Twitter) but also popped up across Reddit and Facebook, range from Vanguard preventing startup programs from firing correctly to other programs crashing when the anti-cheat software loads, and some have even suggested Riots kernel program has been tampering with unrelated files. Others simply dubbed it malware and declared they would be quitting League until the program stopped breaking PCs.

One high-profile example came from famed League creator LS, who reported both his computers breaking after Vanguard was installed on May 1. He said he fixed one by taking out the CMOS battery and forcing BIOS access, but suggested his other computer is still bricked.
Several user posts on the purported Vanguard issues have also been shared to the main League subreddit but they have since been deleted.
While Riot has yet to address any of the early backlash directly, tech staff have been active in the Patch 14.9 Bug Megathread on /r/LeagueOfLegends. One Riot reply suggested some of todays alleged issues wouldnt be related to Vanguard and offered up a simpler solution restart impacted devices and run PC troubleshooting.
The same Riot staffer also suggested any aggrieved players could upload Riot Vanguard logs to the League support page to help isolate what the issue is. All the Reddit comments from that Rioter have since been removed.
Todays Vanguard launch comes after the kernel program was originally delayed. The anti-cheat software, which has been running in VALORANT since the tactical shooter debuted in 2020, is designed to detect third-party programs running on a users PC and ban the offending player. The aim is to maintain competitive integrity, with the tradeoff being Vanguard is always running.
League (and VALORANT) are far from the only modern gaming titles to run kernel-level programs like this; Overwatch, Helldivers 2, and Call of Duty are just some other games that include similar programs.
Dot Esports has contacted Riot for a response to todays claims.

Is it the early 2000s again. I thought the root kit / kernel stuff was done away with back then when they got you when you ran cds on your pc.

SHRlKE posted...

Is it the early 2000s again. I thought the root kit / kernel stuff was done away with back then when they got you when you ran cds on your pc.

Some people are suspicious Tencent is part of this and is collecting data on users. Might be true, might not be. But why deploy such software if you are innocent of this? It is suspicious.

darkphoenix181 posted...

The Brickening Beings.

vanguard has been in valorant for years I sort of doubt it's just suddenly breaking everyone's computer the moment they add it to league

kirbymuncher posted...

vanguard has been in valorant for years I sort of doubt it's just suddenly breaking everyone's computer the moment they add it to league

League is a 15 year old game that is played on toasters.

I am inherently against any sort of third-party application sending off encrypted anonymous data from the kernel level. I don't trust any company's security to be so flawless that they can protect from that attack vector, and that is unfettered access directly to your computer if hacked.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/league-of-legends/lol-vanguard-backlash

Prominent League of Legends personality Nick LS De Cesare posted an image of him following K3os advice, writing Update: after taking out CMOS battery and resetting battery was able to finally get into BIOS and fix PC with Vanguard running (you need UEFI and TPM2.0 both enabled in BIOS or your PC wont load). He does note that one of his other PCs is still bricked though.

A now-deleted response to K3os original comment, obtained by X user Yasukeh before it was removed by the LoL Reddits moderator team, states sure, multiple users getting the same situation after patching with League with Vanguard, must be the users fault. Everyones CMOS battery and motherboards decided to shit the bed when Vanguard launched.

Alucard188 posted...

I am inherently against any sort of third-party application sending off encrypted anonymous data from the kernel level. I don't trust any company's security to be so flawless that they can protect from that attack vector, and that is unfettered access directly to your computer if hacked.

Exactly.

I think TC is unaware of the massive cheating problem CS is facing

I have you tagged appropriately so I'm not sure why I'm responding but how does that justify this?

It's BIG VIDEO GAME pushing their AGENDA on me AGAIN

we, also our big scary boss in china, don't want to spy on you
trust me

I've always joked that League of Legends is a computer virus, but now it's true

Even if it wasn't my lack of free time physically preventing me from getting into these massive online games again stuff like this would've turned me off too.

refmon posted...

I think TC is unaware of the massive cheating problem CS is facing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzIq04vd0M

Do not install anything that requires you to disable VBS

Alucard188 posted...

I am inherently against any sort of third-party application sending off encrypted anonymous data from the kernel level. I don't trust any company's security to be so flawless that they can protect from that attack vector, and that is unfettered access directly to your computer if hacked.

A lot of this stemmed from riot getting hacked and league's source code getting leaked. League also held together by paperclips and glue and is such a buggy mess I can't imagine them suddenly getting their shit together and be able to patch out security exploits.

Uninstalled myself personally though most of the reason is just riot hasn't gotten their shit together for a long while and vanguard gave me the excuse to pull the plug and quit after over 10 yrs.

The only reason I'm tolerating it is because I really like playing TFT and the limited time Arena mode is about 90% of what I've always wanted from LoL.

I still don't trust it, I can only hope that if/when it goes tits up I'm not affected too much and Riot gets their shit together.

KajeI posted...

Also, I don't think I've EVER encountered a cheater in LoL, and I played waaaay too much of it, so I don't buy the necessity of Vanguard in the slightest.

They put out stats recently and apparently it fluctuates a bit but is like 5-15% of LoL games have at least one cheater in them. and higher ranks have more

tbh I'm more sympathetic to the anti-cheat now after seeing some of the numbers. cheaters in 1/10th of games is actually insane

kirbymuncher posted...

They put out stats recently and apparently it fluctuates a bit but is like 5-15% of LoL games have at least one cheater in them. and higher ranks have more

tbh I'm more sympathetic to the anti-cheat now after seeing some of the numbers. cheaters in 1/10th of games is actually insane

Did they specify whether those numbers include people running things like cosmetic mods, AA range reminders, jungle camp timers, etc? Or was it just the actual cheating stuff like scripting or forcing crashes or whatever?

Tyranthraxus posted...

Do not install anything that requires you to disable VBS

Don't know what this is and Vanguard requires it to be off?

KajeI posted...

Also, I don't think I've EVER encountered a cheater in LoL, and I played waaaay too much of it, so I don't buy the necessity of Vanguard in the slightest.

Same.

kirbymuncher posted...

They put out stats recently and apparently it fluctuates a bit but is like 5-15% of LoL games have at least one cheater in them. and higher ranks have more

I find that unlikely. What cheats do they have?

darkphoenix181 posted...

I find that unlikely. What cheats do they have?

client-side scripts that provide superhuman aim, reaction speed, inputs, etc

https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-vanguard-x-lol/

They rebroadcast the game as an event stream and allow the end-user to create (or more likely, copy and paste) a selection of "scripts" that automate certain behaviors in response to these events. The end result is usually a frame-perfect Zeri kiting on what appears to be a near-lethal dose of caffeine or a god-touched Cassiopeia that, through the power of prayer, has been rendered untouchable by any skillshot.

When piloted optimally, scripter win rates hover around 80% in Ranked games, continually propelling their unyielding supply of accounts through the ladder.

Regular suspensions have stood up a saturated secondary account market, and the barrier to reentry is only the cost of a fresh level 30, which at the time of this article is about $1.99 with a side of large fries. This type of quantity-over-quality pricing strategy is made possible, becauseyou guessed itthe accounts themselves are leveled by scripting applications, resulting in a loop that allows cheaters to iterate against us indefinitely.

valorant, for comparison, is less than 1% of games having cheaters

darkphoenix181 posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzIq04vd0M

https://youtu.be/rjBhEwMdrtk?si=glggsB_a-M7DJ82c&t=436

My friends and I haven't played LoL in a hot minute, maybe an aram a few times here and there. We pretty much all just straight up uninstalled rather than getting Vanguard.

darkphoenix181 posted...

Don't know what this is and Vanguard requires it to be off?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-vbs

That is an operating system level setting you have to turn off. Even when you're not playing the game, it's causing a security risk.

They had to make a whole page devoted to numerous errors caused by Vanguard. There is enough you have to scroll.
https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/26932165816851-Vanguard-Error-Codes-and-Solutions-LoL

It broke this guy's game and he was smart enough to record it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X4XAh8EtFI

kirbymuncher posted...

client-side scripts that provide superhuman aim, reaction speed, inputs, etc

https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-vanguard-x-lol/

valorant, for comparison, is less than 1% of games having cheaters

That's a completely different type of video game, how is that comparable

KajeI posted...

Also, I don't think I've EVER encountered a cheater in LoL, and I played waaaay too much of it, so I don't buy the necessity of Vanguard in the slightest.

what elo are you

metralo posted...

what elo are you

Elo doesn't matter. New players always get matched with new players and almost all cheaters get caught in the new player phase.

Wtf I'm scared. I was about to play some League and I see all this. But honestly how many % of people have reported bricking out of the entire League player base? I assume pretty damn low if the only evidence is like 3 tweets.

pretzelcoatl posted...

That's a completely different type of video game, how is that comparable

Not really the point I was trying to make - Both games are made by Riot. Valorant has Vanguard and the cheater % is quite low. League does not have Vanguard and the cheater % is quite high. It clearly works quite well.

Tyranthraxus posted...

New players always get matched with new players and almost all cheaters get caught in the new player phase.

ranked games were like 5-10% to have cheaters and you need to be level 30 for that, which is not "new player". I wouldn't even be surprsied if most are caught early and there's just so many that even then, ranked still has a bunch

C_Pain posted...

Wtf I'm scared. I was about to play some League and I see all this. But honestly how many % of people have reported bricking out of the entire League player base? I assume pretty damn low if the only evidence is like 3 tweets.

The Riot Anti-Cheat team chimed in on Reddit. They said it was a successful launch and only caused issues with .03% of players. Someone in the comments said that is actually 54,000 people and other suggest they are only counting those who actually made Vanguard specific tickets. Further the thread is quickly being filled with people saying it messed up their machines in various ways from bricking to messing up other things.
On the other hand in the comments the Rioter said it only found cheaters in 200 games since it went live. That seems very low for a game with "millions of players".

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1civ4l7/update_from_riot_on_vanguard/
https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1civ4l7/comment/l2bu66f/

Reminder that Arcane is the only good thing to come out of League.

dancing_cactuar posted...

Reminder that Arcane is the only good thing to come out of League.

I disagree. I liked League and TFT. Yes there was frustrating games but that only happens when you care about your E-Credit. Give up E-Credit and you can just have fun. No one was ruining my fun by cheating. Maybe there was a tiny fraction of cheaters ruining E-Credit at the top levels? Ultimately I don't see this move as legitimate. There wasn't a big cheating problem so I suspect there is other motivations behind forcing this to League of Legends. That is suspicious. Valorant I never played but I could see it being an FPS that maybe you could sorta argue it needs something, but League? Leauge has been fine the way it was for 15 years. This doesn't make it better only worse.

I still had LoL installed cuz I enjoy TFT, but I got rid of it rather than allowing this shit on my PC. Nothing they've got going on is worth that.

nekrodev posted...

I still had LoL installed cuz I enjoy TFT, but I got rid of it rather than allowing this shit on my PC. Nothing they've got going on is worth that.

Agreed. Installation of Vanguard is a separate thing and just having League installed won't force it, not yet at least. At least it seems if you play TFT on Mobile there is no Vanguard requirement.

The thing is with kernel level access. You just won't know if it's still hidden in your system even after you uninstall it.

So there's no point getting scared once you've already installed those games.

Cobra1010 posted...

So there's no point getting scared once you've already installed those games.

The game itself doesn't install it. The Vanguard is a separate installation. Basically if you boot up League without it, it opens up but then says that you need Vanguard, install it and restart League.

League might be done