Cheating — and the anti-cheat systems game developers create to protect players from it — is always a hot topic in the PC gaming space, and is particularly relevant to highly competitive PvP shooter games like Counter-Strike or Valorant. The latter is actually going through a pretty sizable commotion right now that's centered around its anti-cheat, ignited by a controversial post from Riot Games, the studio behind it.
On Tuesday, Valorant players began to report that an update to Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat software was preventing DMA firmwares — specially made pieces of hacking hardware that connect to your PC and bypass kernel-level anti-cheat solutions — from working properly.
Even when the free-to-play tactical shooter isn't running or Vanguard is removed from your system, the firmwares no longer work; the only way to make them functional on your PC again is to fully reinstall Windows or whatever other operating system you're using.
You might be thinking, "What's the problem?" Well, Vanguard's new effectiveness against DMA cards might have been celebrated by the Valorant community, were it not for Riot making quite a bold statement: "Congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight."
That was posted to X (Twitter) along with a photo of dozens of DMA firmware cards strewn about an office, and many took the post to mean that Riot's anti-cheat system is actually bricking the PCs people are using while trying to hack in Valorant, making them unusable. And as you can imagine...that didn't go over well. Not at all.
Well, that escalated quickly.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/dXb75Z91k9May 22, 2026
The misunderstanding of the post spread like wildfire and stirred up a colossal uproar, driving Riot to clarify things in detail in a lengthy follow-up post. "Well, that escalated quickly," the developer wrote. "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 studio went on to explain that Vanguard hooks into your PC's Input-Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU) security feature to detect and counter devices like DMA cards, preventing them from working while IOMMU protections are enabled. Disabling them will make the firmware devices work again — but since Valorant and other Riot games require them, you won't be able to use them in those titles.
"This means the cheat device won’t work with our games, but your PC isn’t 'bricked.' We would not, and cannot, impact your PC’s functionality in any other fashion," Riot said. "This functionality only applies to systems attempting to use DMA cheat devices, and players who are not using DMA-based cheat setups are not affected."
Ultimately, that clears things up pretty clearly, though some still argue that Vanguard's protections are overreaching here, and shouldn't affect a piece of hardware that someone buys. Others, however, feel they're appropriate since that hardware is being used to breach Valorant's Terms of Service. Some have also expressed concerns about potential issues with false positives with the anti-cheat.
It's an undeniably murky topic, and one around which debates will surely rage on ad infinitum. But at the very least, I'm glad Riot took the time to clarify to people that Vanguard isn't bricking the PCs of Valorant players.
What are your thoughts on Valorant's Vanguard anti-cheat, and the fact it prevents DMA cards from working without disabling IOMMU or reinstalling the OS? Let me know below.
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