Anti-Cheat Guide

Valorant Anti-Cheat

The most aggressive consumer anti-cheat in gaming: a boot-start kernel driver with HWID bans. Treat Valorant as the hardest mainstream game to cheat in safely.

Valorant runs Riot Vanguard, a kernel-level anti-cheat that loads a driver at Windows boot - before the game, before most of your software, with the deepest access level an application can have on your PC. On Windows 11 it also leans on TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. There is no lighter mode: if Vanguard is not running, Valorant will not launch.

This is the single most demanding environment we cover. Vanguard issues hardware (HWID) bans, not just account bans, and it has the visibility to spot drivers and injected code that a user-mode system like VAC never sees. If you are weighing Valorant against any other game on detection risk alone, Valorant is the ceiling.

How Vanguard works in Valorant

Because Vanguard starts with the operating system, it can inspect drivers and memory the moment they load and refuse to let the game run if it sees something it distrusts - unsigned drivers, test-signing mode, known cheat patterns. It runs continuously in the background, not just while Valorant is open.

That boot-time, ring-0 vantage point is what makes ordinary external and internal cheats unviable here. The only architectures with a realistic survival window are hardware DMA setups that read memory from a second machine, and even those live and die by how current and quiet they are.

What a Valorant ban actually means

Vanguard bans reach the hardware. A confirmed detection can blacklist hardware identifiers so a fresh Riot account on the same PC is still locked out - which is why an HWID spoofer is part of the conversation for Valorant in a way it never is for CS2.

Bans are also frequently delivered in waves, so a build can look "safe" for a while and then a batch of accounts and machines drop together. Plan for the hardware cost, not just the account cost.

Detection track record

Valorant sits at the very top of our detection scale - "Very High" - and earns it. Vanguard updates aggressively and has repeatedly closed off cheat methods that worked for months. Public, cheap, or "free" Valorant cheats are detection bait; they are the fastest route to an HWID ban.

The honest framing is that there is no low-risk way to cheat in Valorant. Every method here is a moving target against a vendor that has made anti-cheat a core product, so currency and discretion matter more than in any other title.

Cheating in Valorant safely

If you cheat in Valorant, the realistic path is a current, well-maintained DMA build paired with hardware-ID hygiene, and a legit playstyle that does not invite manual review. Rage configs and visible aimlock in a ranked lobby are how machines get flagged.

Be clear-eyed: this is the riskiest game we stock cheats for. If avoiding a hardware ban is your priority, a lighter-anti-cheat title is the safer place to cheat. What we list for Valorant is the subset built specifically against Vanguard - check the current status before you buy.

Valorant anti-cheat FAQ

Is Riot Vanguard kernel-level?: Yes. Vanguard installs a kernel-mode driver that starts at boot and runs continuously, which is why Valorant will not launch without it and why it can see far more than VAC.
Does Valorant ban your hardware?: Yes. Vanguard can issue HWID bans that lock the machine, not just the account, so a new account alone is not enough to get back in - this is where an HWID spoofer comes in.
Are free Valorant cheats safe?: No. Public and free Valorant cheats are the most heavily targeted and the quickest path to a hardware ban. Valorant is the highest-risk game on our detection scale.

This guide is informational and reflects how Vanguard and Valorant bans generally work; anti-cheats update constantly, so treat every detail as a moving target rather than a guarantee. Last reviewed 2026-06-15.