Riot Games, the developer behind worldwide mega-hit League of Legends continue to enjoy success in the esports market with their upcoming new feature, a hero-based tactical first-person shooter Valorant.
Amidst this success, the controversy surrounding its mandatory anti-cheat software has marred what would have been an otherwise stellar debut.
To enjoy the new feature, users will be promoted to install the anti-cheat program Vanguard. It is easy to install and aims to prevent hackers from spoiling the fun.
However, there is growing concern over the anti-cheat software Vanguard
Firstly, Vanguard is an active process that runs in the background from the moment you turned on your computer. It monitors which programs were opened concurrently with Valorant and took necessary action to prevent anything that could be considered cheating.
Additionally, some users felt that Vanguard is installed on what is called the essential system-level of your computer, meaning it's nearly impossible to deactivate without the necessary security privileges and some serious IT knowledge.
The amount of security risk is also higher than any other reliable anti-cheat software that already exist. If Riot's servers happened to be breached, hackers would have complete control over every single computer with the Vanguard program installed on it. That means they'd have access to all of your passwords, documents, photos, banking info and any other information they could find with relative ease.
The number of ways this level of access could be taken advantage of is staggering, and the damage hackers could cause with it would make cheating in a video game seem insignificant.
