Valve Anti-Cheat

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Valve Anti-Cheat ( VAC ) is software that has been integrated into the multiplayer components of their games by the game company Valve . Their purpose is to recognize so-called cheaters in online games and to exclude them from playing. VAC uses various methods for this, also called detections. These detections behave similarly to virus definitions in antivirus programs and are always reloaded when an Internet game is started. VAC mainly focuses on executable game files and program libraries .

The appearance of Half-Life 2 in November 2004, Valve announced an update for VAC named VAC second The final version was published about a year after the announcement.

Working principle

If a player cheats on a VAC secured server, his Steam account will be permanently blocked for further games on VAC secured servers. This lock only applies to games with the same engine . For example , if you cheated in Counter-Strike 1.6 (which uses the GoldSrc engine), you can still play in Counter-Strike: Source ( Source Engine ) on secured servers. In order to leave the cheater in the dark as to which cheat triggered the block and so that other fraudsters cannot be warned, the block only comes into effect after a few days or weeks.

Valve introduced a new tool at the Game Developers Conference 2018. VACnet operates a deep learning AI that detects aimbots using conspicuous cursor movements. The aim of the project was a complementary tool to the labor-intensive Overwatch system, in which experienced players watch replays and VAC in which Valve has to manually add the recognition signatures. VACnet is constantly learning from input from the Overwatch system and has shown detection rates of 80 to 95 percent.

criticism

VAC (2) is criticized because of the large intervals between the updates, as these are crucial for the effectiveness of the system.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steam Support Wiki: VAC ( Memento from March 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) ( Accessed : January 27, 2008, Version 1:11, Jan 13, 2008 )
  2. ↑ HLPortal.de: VAC2 is coming! (December 18, 2004; Accessed January 27, 2008)
  3. ↑ a b CounterStrike.de: How VAC works (November 12, 2006; accessed: February 3, 2008)
  4. ↑ VACnet: That's why Valve uses 3,456 CPU cores for deep learning against cheaters