Riot Games’ Vanguard Anti-Cheat update can turn cheaters’ PCs into “paperweights”, the company denies it
Cheaters face unusable systems as Riot doubles down on one of the most invasive anti-cheat solutions yet
Update: Riot Games has issued a statement regarding Vanguard, assuring users that it “does not damage hardware or disable your devices.” The studio provides a more detailed explanation of what its anti-cheat system actually does, assuring users that none of this “impacts your PC’s functionality in any other way.”
Well, that escalated quickly.
— Riot Games (@riotgames) May 22, 2026
There’s been a wave of claims by cheaters about Vanguard “bricking” their PCs, so let’s clear that up: Vanguard does not damage hardware or disable your devices.
The photo we posted is a picture of cheat hardware devices that are sold explicitly… https://t.co/dXb75Z91k9
The original news story follows:
Dealing with cheaters in competitive video games is always a challenge for developers. Often, the anti-cheat systems they implement can be easily bypassed—sometimes within just a few hours of being released. But this time, Riot Games has managed to implement such a powerful anti-cheat system in Valorant and League of Legends that it completely renders cheaters’ computers useless.
The Operational Cost of Zero-Tolerance Security
The latest update to Vanguard, Riot Games’ anti-cheat system, has once again sparked debate within the community. The software’s latest update introduces a highly aggressive countermeasure specifically targeting Direct Memory Access (DMA) firmware. DMA hardware is a sophisticated method in which cheaters use a secondary physical device to read and alter game memory externally, thereby evading traditional anti-cheat detection. According to technical reports shared by users within the security community, Vanguard now blocks “the majority of DMA firmwares using SATA/NVMe.” The major shift with this update is how the anti-cheat reacts once it detects unapproved DMA hardware configurations. In simpler words, Vanguard attacks the DMA firmware, doesn’t matter you are playing or not, with the only fix being reinstalling Windows.
Although many users have complained about this aggressive measure, Riot has only addressed a few of these complaints by responding on social media with “Congrats to the owners of a brand-new $6,000 paperweight.”
congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight https://t.co/3rjZVQntrc pic.twitter.com/fS3JC0FL0p
— Riot Games (@riotgames) May 21, 2026
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Because Vanguard is a mandatory requirement to launch both Valorant and League of Legends, players must fully accept this level of aggressive oversight if they wish to continue participating in Riot’s competitive ecosystems. And of course, don’t be a cheater.
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