Riot Games turns $6000 hacker rigs into paperweights and literally laughs in their face

A security researcher named ogisada sounded the alarm, claiming that Vanguard—the kernel-level anti-cheat running in Valorant and League of Legends—is actively targeting Direct Memory Access (DMA) cards. These pricey hardware devices allow cheaters to read game memory directly from another PC, bypassing normal software-level detection.

According to reports, the software triggers a forced reboot of the system's IOMMU security protocols upon detecting these DMA cards. The result? The cheat firmware is completely blocked and stops functioning, even when the game isn't running and the anti-cheat itself is uninstalled. To get the PC back to normal, desperate cheaters are forced to completely reinstall their operating systems.

Instead of issuing a dry corporate PR statement, Riot Games posted a photo showing dozens of confiscated DMA cards, mocking hackers with a caption: "Congratulations on your new $6,000 paperweights!" This public shaming sent shockwaves through the gaming community, sparking a massive debate over how much control a game developer should have over a user's physical computer.

To cool down the panic, a representative for Riot Games told The Gamer that Vanguard doesn't actually damage any physical hardware. The software simply forces the motherboard's built-in security features, like IOMMU, to do their job and block rogue devices from sniffing around the RAM.

What a time to be alive, where playing a free-to-play tactical shooter requires giving a multi-billion-dollar corporation the keys to the entire operating system. While nobody sheds tears for cheaters losing their expensive hardware toys, this setting of a precedent where a game anti-cheat can unilaterally alter system-level bios settings might just be the actual horror story here.

Source: Riot Games on X