Riot Games has had to defend itself after receiving numerous criticisms for the introduction of a new anti-cheat system for League of Legends
The developers of League of Legends have been victims of a disinformation campaign related to the introduction of a new anti-cheat system for the video game called Vanguard. The controversy regarding this program is related to the fact that it operates at the kernel level. This, without getting technical, means that it is located at the ‘heart’ of the operating system so that it can ‘monitor’ all the open processes on our PC. It sounds like something very worrying and, although in reality it is not so worrying, it has given rise to many problems among users. Since the update in which Riot Games launched Vanguard, the company has been accused of breaking some players’ computers and taking screenshots without permission.
Riot Games responds to community accusations
The situation has reached a point where the developers have had to intervene. “Since Patch 14.9 was released [en el que se incluyó Vanguard] Less than 0.03% of players have had problems with the program. In most cases these were common errors that were easy to resolve,” they explained from the company on Reddit. They also claimed that so far they had no confirmation that the update had damaged the computer of any player except two specific cases in which “a user used the SecureBoot feature with a very specific custom configuration” and another related to the relationship between UEFI, Windows Once and MBR partitions; both having been resolved.
“To be very clear, Vanguard does not take a screenshot of your computer monitor or multiple monitors on your computer. What it can do is take a photo of your game client (full screen) or the part that your client occupies of the screen (windowed or borderless). This is a very normal practice in other anti-cheat systems and that many other programs use. It is also a widely known element among the ‘anticheat’ community. When it comes to privacy, Vanguard complies with regional laws“, they also explained from Riot Games.
The reality is that most of the accusations that Riot Games has suffered seem malicious and are almost always related to the fact that the company is owned by Tencent. The developer was one of the first to introduce an anti-cheat system that operates at the kernel level, but since then dozens of companies have joined this operating principle. Fortnite, Fall Guys, PUBG, Rainbow Six: Siege, Apex Legends, Helldivers 2 or Call of Duty are some of the games that use this type of system. The difference in the case of Riot Games is that it is always active. However, we can disable this function and simply restart the PC before playing League of Legends or Valorant.
The truly terrifying thing about this whole story is knowing that developers do not need kernel permissions to steal data. Every time we open an executable file (.exe) we are subjecting ourselves to a risk and giving the creators of that program much more trust than we think. Even before the happy word “kernel” was in our dictionary, there have been problems with games that hid cryptocurrency mining programs or the introduction of advertising programs.
Do not misunderstand. I think that there is a legitimate discussion about what path the video game industry should take in relation to cheaters. This is a tragedy waiting to happen, since it is a matter of time before a company arrives that has those bad intentions that Riot Games is now presumed to have. However, there is no reason to distrust the creators of League of Legends more than those of Call of Duty, PUBG or Helldivers 2.
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