VALORANT has an anti-cheat driver component called vgk.sys that starts upon computer boot, but don’t worry, Riot has confirmed this is intentional, and it does not send or collect any data.
It is very common to find cheaters in free-to-play FPS titles or shooting games in general, and VALORANT is no exception. VALORANT has already encountered cheaters, and Riot Games has banned them. Unlike other titles, VALORANT is different; they have banned the cheaters instantly and many players have seen players getting banned live in-game.
Riot Games has promised to keep cheaters away from the game way before the close beta release, and it seems like they are doing just fine.
How Riot Games is keeping the Cheaters away
Riot Games is running an anti-cheat driver called Vanguard. Vanguard has a component named vgk.sys that starts every time your computer boots. Unlike other anti-cheat drivers BattlEye and EasyAntiCheat, that start when opening the game and stop after closing the game, VALORANT’s Vanguard acts differently. It starts with a computer booting, and there are many reasons why.
RiotArkem has confirmed on Reddit that cheaters are able to bypass anti-cheats because they are able to load the cheat before the anti-cheat loads up and either modify system components to contain the cheat or to have the cheat tamper with the anti-cheat system as it loads. But if the anti-cheat is running at the startup, it becomes very difficult for the cheaters to bypass them.
But many people, including DolphinWhacker, who showed this to everyone, might question why there is a vgk.sys running even though they are not playing the game. And if this system is leaking their privacy or not. But don’t worry. It does not collect or send any information about your computer back to Riot Games.
Regarding the situation, RiotArkem said, “Yes we run a driver at system startup, it doesn’t scan anything (unless the game is running), it’s designed to take up as few system resources as possible, and it doesn’t communicate to our servers. You can remove it at any time”.
You can stop the system any time you want or even uninstall the Vanguard driver. But Riot thinks it is an important tool to fight against the cheaters. And RiotArkem has also confirmed if this tool hampers the user experience, they will remove it and try something else in the future.
