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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteRiot has described using undercover identities to gather intelligence inside cheat-development communities. Separately, the company says it may monitor in-game voice and text chat to enforce conduct rules. The available evidence does not show that Riot’s anti-cheat team infiltrates ordinary players’ personal chats to catch cheaters.
What Riot’s “intel team” is reported to do
In a May 2025 interview with TechCrunch, Phillip Koskinas, Riot’s director and head of anti-cheat, described a reconnaissance function that obtains and catalogs threats, sometimes by acquiring cheats. TechCrunch reported that Riot’s team used sock-puppet identities to enter communities of cheaters and cheat developers.
Koskinas said the team could share anti-cheat information to establish credibility, then gain access to a cheat while it was being developed. In the account he gave TechCrunch, Riot could wait until the cheat launched before banning users. This is an interview account from Riot’s anti-cheat head, not an independent audit of the practice. It describes intelligence gathering among cheat communities—not covert access to ordinary players’ direct messages or personal chat accounts.
Koskinas also summarized one goal of Vanguard by saying it “forces cheats to be visible.” That is his characterization, not a guarantee that every cheat is detected.
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How Riot describes its technical anti-cheat defenses
Undercover intelligence is only one part of the picture. Riot’s technical explainer on anti-cheat describes methods for making cheats harder to build and use, alongside detection and enforcement. The examples below come from Riot’s explanation of its League of Legends approach; they should not be read as a promise that every Riot game uses every technique in exactly the same way today.
Limit what the game client knows
Riot says it can limit the game-state information sent to a player’s computer. Less unnecessary information available to the client can mean fewer opportunities for cheats to extract an advantage from it.
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Keep important decisions server-authoritative
Riot describes relying on the server to simulate and decide important game outcomes. This makes it harder for a modified client to dictate what happens in the match.
Protect and monitor the client
Riot’s account also discusses obfuscating network protocols and protecting the client against analysis and tampering. Its broader explanation distinguishes prevention—raising the difficulty of making cheats—from detecting suspicious or anomalous behavior and removing cheaters.
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For VALORANT, Riot describes Vanguard as anti-cheat and security software designed to block cheat software and detect cheat hardware. Its support guidance on cheating says cheating with unauthorized hardware or software can result in a permanent account ban. A 2026 Vanguard update discusses kernel-mode cheats and system protections, including IOMMU. These are high-level descriptions of Riot’s defenses, not instructions for circumventing them.
Chat monitoring is a separate, disclosed practice
Riot’s privacy notice says it may record, store, and monitor voice and text chat, along with similar details about optional interactions. The notice describes manual methods, such as player-support reports, and automated analysis that can include machine learning, transcription, and analysis. Riot says it uses behavior patterns to assess rule violations and may impose account or communication restrictions.
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That policy concerns enforcing conduct rules. It does not establish that the anti-cheat reconnaissance team uses ordinary player chats to infiltrate cheat developers, nor does it document how often a human reviews individual chat records, a retention period for every chat type, or whether any specific chat record has been used in an anti-cheat investigation. Riot says some decisions may be appealed and may allow manual review by an agent.
A separate milestone appears in Riot’s 2024 Impact Report: Riot Voice Evaluation launched for English voice chat in almost every Riot region during 2024, with the report describing coverage across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. That is a voice-moderation initiative, distinct from the reported undercover work in cheat communities.
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What players can do about suspected cheating
Riot’s VALORANT support guidance recommends reporting suspected cheating through the in-game reporting system during or after a match. This gives Riot a player-facing route for a concern; it is not a guarantee that any specific report will result in a ban.
What Riot’s reported cheating figure does—and doesn’t—show
TechCrunch reported Riot’s claim that fewer than 1% of globally ranked VALORANT matches had cheaters as of early 2025. That is a company-reported, dated figure for ranked VALORANT matches, not an independently verified estimate or a current rate across all Riot games and modes.
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