What Is Anti-Cheat Software, and How Does It Work?
Plenty of multiplayer games allow you to play online cooperatively or competitively with other players. While you may not be the best player in a game, you likely enjoy playing and getting better over time.
Unfortunately, lots of gamers ruin the enjoyment you may get by cheating. Games developers have tried to combat this by using anti-cheat software. You may be wondering how this works. Let’s find out more.
What Is Anti-Cheat Software, and Why Is It Important?
Anti-cheat software (ACS) attempts to prevent cheats from being used in a game. As there are different types of cheats: lag switching, aimbots, wall hacks, and scripting to name a few, there is various ACS to neutralize them.
You’ve got server-side ACS which only runs when you load a game. While playing, the software will scan your PC’s active processes, detecting anything out of the ordinary. This could be files you’ve downloaded to the system, whether they are running or not, or how your network is interacting with others. An example of this is Easy AntiCheat, which launches with every Epic Games game you download.
Then there is kernel-side ACS that is granted access to a deeper level of your PC’s system. Kernel-side ACS will have extremely high privileges, higher than even your device drivers and other apps you install onto your system. BattlEye represents a kernel-side ACS used in games like Destiny 2 and Ark: Survival Evolved.
The ACS for a game is usually at the disclosure of the developer. You’ve probably encountered an ACS file being downloaded onto your PC when you’ve installed a game before and wondered why it’s important.
Think how annoying it would be if you were playing an FPS and a player used an aimbot, able to get a headshot on you instantly with no chance of fighting back. The additions ofAI cheat engines threaten FPS gameseven further.
Cheating ruins the fun of multiplayer gaming for everyone else. Since relying on players to not use cheating software was clearly never going to work, ACS was developed to prevent it. Without it, you’d see a lot more cheaters in your favorite games.
How Does Anti-Cheat Software Work?
As mentioned, different types of anti-cheat software (ACS) address varying cheats. ACS, regardless of whether it has server-side or kernel-side privileges, will work in different ways to target the relevant cheats.
When a cheater is lag switching, they are deliberately cutting off supply to the internet at coordinated intervals to benefit them. In a game like Madden NFL, lag switching can cause lag delays when you’re on the defense or attack. Or, in a game of Counter-Strike or Call of Duty, you’d be unable to shoot the player lag switching because they’re never actually in the spot they seem to be.
In these cases, a server-side ACS would detect lag switching by logging data packets from all players, analyzing ping, and timestamping examples. The ACS would then examine a player looking for any suspicious changes in data packets and ping. This method of detecting lag switches was made clear when Sony patented “detecting lag switch cheating in games”, as reported byMP1st.
For cheats such as aimbots and wallhacks, these are usually executable files that are ‘automating’ game movements to offer the user an unfair advantage, known as scripting. An aimbot would log the location of other gamers and automatically aim the crosshair at that player. For an ACS to prevent this, there will be an in-built ACS server-side monitoring the movements of every player.
Kernel-side ACS, as we previously discussed, is given the highest privileges on your PC and constantly scans for cheats, regardless of whether you’re playing a game or not. BattlEye and Easy Anti-Cheat are great examples of this type of ACS; the ACS is installed onto your PC, constantly checking for malicious files that could automate game tasks, hindering cheaters.
Once an ACS has spotted potential cheating behavior from a player, they will flag it on the system and either straight-up ban the user or allocate it to be reviewed by an employee. This employee would then decide if the player was cheating or not.
Unfortunately, hackers are constantly finding ways to circumvent ACS. Think of it as a constant battle between ACS and hackers, lasting throughout console and PC generations.
Anti-cheat software is usually a trade-off. If too many restrictions are in place, then ACS can affect performance and latency. Because of this, developers have to be careful about how aggressive the anti-cheat software is.
The Problems With Anti-Cheat Software
Over time, cheating software by hackers has become more sophisticated. Anti-cheat software has had to become more sophisticated in response to combat it.
Cheaters found ways to circumvent anti-cheat software in the past by running processes on a kernel level rather than through the game application they intend to cheat on. If you’re unfamiliar withthe difference between the kernel mode and user mode in Windows, you may want to do a quick read-up.
To prevent users from circumventing the anti-cheat software, developers had to go deeper. They developed anti-cheat software that operates at the kernel level; scanning the computer for any software programs that could have the potential to allow a user to cheat.
This does seem to work, but similarly towhy gamers dislike ACS like Denovo, it brings with it its own problems. Programs that run at a kernel level have the potential to fry a PC if they go wrong; which could result in gamers having to get their PCs repaired simply for trying to enjoy a game.
Another reservation lots of gamers have is privacy concerns; if the anti-cheat software can read everything at a kernel level, it can theoretically gain access to anything on the PC. Nobody wants to put up with cheaters, but is it worth risking your privacy?
Anti-Cheat Software Makes Gaming Fairer
You’d be surprised at how prevalent cheating is in online gaming. Anti-cheat software makes gaming fairer for you and everyone else by preventing those cheaters from getting away with it.
It’s not perfect and doesn’t always work, but cheating would run rampant if it wasn’t there. Just as there are plenty of cheats, there are plenty of anti-cheat software programs out there that help keep gaming fairer.
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