Valorant's new anti-cheat system blocks legitimate apps

News by Cian Maher Contributor

Published on April 28, 2020

The new Valorant anti-cheat system, Vanguard, blocks legitimate apps even when Valorant isn't running.

Players have taken to social media to express their concerns about the Valorant anti-cheat system disabling other apps on their computer. One Twitter user posted a screenshot of Vanguard blocking another app from loading on their PC, which you can see below.

I can't believe people at Riot thought "pretend to be a shitty virus scanner and block apps randomly" was the correct answer instead of "disable playing the game until you reboot"

Like holy s**t is this a video game or an enterprise asset control system pic.twitter.com/vaTL3VSmJg
— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) April 28, 2020

The same thread contains information about the pop-up that prompts players to reconsider whether or not they want to disable Vanguard, even though doing so is the only way of reaccessing the apps it is restricting.

Also a big fan of "here's a yes/no modal that looks like it will run your app, but actually opens a f**king webpage" pic.twitter.com/8a6wsfgxkS
— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) April 28, 2020

The reasoning provided in the pop-up window says that these are necessary precautions designed to "maintain competitive integrity in [Riot's] games." It also mentions that opting out places your system in an untrusted state, and you will be unable to regain access to Valorant until you have rebooted your computer and re-enabled Vanguard.

Riot posted an official response to the situation on Reddit, but said post has been received with a certain degree of flak, primarily for trivializing valid concerns about personal security and app blocking by posing hypothetical questions in cutesy and innocuous ways.

Some free PR advice for the Valorant team: Stop being so cutesy when it comes to serious and valid questions about computer security (image relevant) pic.twitter.com/GnxmN6kOfy
— Kyle Orland (@KyleOrl) April 28, 2020

The post itself notes that Riot is "trying very hard to minimize the amount of software [it] blocks using Vanguard."

"Most players will never run into such a scenario," it continues. "Vanguard will always notify you if it blocks or modifies anything on your system. We believe in transparency." However, these clarifications have yet to quell concerns, with players listing a variety of apps that shouldn't be blocked by Vanguard but, for some reason, have been.

They're really going to put themselves in the position of having to manually verify every piece of software on earth. I guess they can afford it. pic.twitter.com/WqtqLGKT8m
— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) April 28, 2020

Although the post is informative in terms of self-diagnosing issues arising from Vanguard's activity, it also contains several strange and offbeat comments about people "willing to solder a computer part from Siberia to cheat," and at one point mentions that, "No, we’re not selling your data to China." These comments only serve to accentuate the aforementioned point about trivial responses to legitimate public concern further dismissing the severity of people attempting to address their own personal computer safety.

Recent concerns aside, Riot seems serious when it comes to the practical side of maintaining a stalwart anti-cheat system, offering bounties of up to $100,000 to players who report exploits in the Valorant anti-cheat software. On top of this, Valorant team members have been transparent about why Vanguard needs to run even when you aren't playing.

If you're still not sure what all the fuss is about, check out some Valorant gameplay.