Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages
Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages
Valve announced a change for Steam today that will make things a lot clearer for everyone, as developers will now need to clearly list the kernel-level anti-cheat used on Steam store pages.
Now if only they could more clearly communicate when games are playable offline.
Ooh and it's a giant yellow banner you probably won't miss, and not some two-shades-ligher-than-the-background nonsense.
Good job, Valve.
They do this with Early Access and people still lose their shit about empty content and unfinished graphics in a game they paid $10 for.
If only they let you filter out games from being seen on your store page or showing up in recommendations using this as a criteria.
Gamers don’t care
If Valve was against this then they would block them from their store. This is avoiding legal consequences
Easy Anti Cheat - requires manual removal
Wait, so this sketchy, privacy-invading stuff remains even after a game is uninstalled?! I had no idea.
How is this stuff not classed as malware at this point?
Oh it was initially classed as insanely intrusive malware when kernel level AC was introduced about a decade ago, by anyone with a modicum of actual technical knowledge about computers.
Unfortunately, a whole lot of corpo shills ran propaganda explaining how actually its fine, don't worry, its actually the best way to stop cheaters!
Then the vast, vast majority of idiot gamers believed that, or threw their hands up and went oh well its the new norm, trying to fight it is futile and actually if you are against this that means you are some kind of paranoid privacy freak who hates other people having fun.
Do you remember when Sony released cds that when inserted into Windows computer auto ran an installer that installed a rootkit that made it impossible for Windows to see any processes or files that started with a certain sequence of characters instantly turning any malware that named its files or processes similarly powerful rootkit. Oh and it installed a cd driver that made it impossible to copy their music.
Suggested removal was a full reinstall of windows.
I've been shouting from the rooftops for years that this stuff is malware. I'm not the only one. No one listens.
Plenty of games use it, if it uninstalled with each one then others would stop working.
I kind of assumed it would be packaged with each game, a waste of space (but how big could it be?) but leaving a game with anti cheat a global dependency seems like a bad idea.
Wikipedia says malware is
any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user's computer security and privacy
It does not do any of these things. Like any software, it may have vulnerabilities, and being a kernel module it can be high risk. But that's no different from any kernel module, like your graphics driver.
It unknowingly interferes with my security or privacy, 100%. It has root access. What's it doing in there? Nowadays you're naive to think it's just to prevent game cheating. I guarantee they're collecting all kinds of information.
It's a much higher risk than average because games are often abandoned within one year of release and still run as long as 10-15 years later and connects to the internet and other randos on the internet. See the Call of Duty games that allow you to take over the computer of anyone who connects to your online match. It greatly degrades the security of its users.
Technically lots of things people call "malware" don't actually do any of those things. For instance they may hijack your default search engine, pop up ads, or otherwise monetize your computer at your expense. The category that was invented by ass coverers is "possibly unwanted program" but outside of those who worry about being sued by scumbags people colloquially refer to both what you call malware AND PUPs as "malware the root of which is "bad" after all. Language being descriptive not prescriptive I think this broader definition of malware is fine.
EAC installation process includes "registration" of a game, and the uninstall process "unregisters" the game. If all games using EAC are uninstalled, EAC itself also should be uninstalled.
Any program having kernel level access is spyware. This is getting ridiculous.
Vanguard anticheat...
I wonder if you phrased it the way the Play store does: This game wants permission to:
- send SMS messages
- make calls
- know your location
- stalk your family
- raid your fridge
- access, read and upload files
- manage and add contacts
- cup your balls
- go through your trash
- irritate your boss
etc.
Think anyone would install them?
Cup my balls? Go on...
looks at Disney pluses binding arbitration clause
Yup
of course, people don't even look at play store permissions
I suppose they do suffer from the "Known in the state of Cancer to cause California" problem. A bubble level app wants in-app purchases and GPS access.
However, it's only being forced for kernel-level anti-cheat. If it's only client-side or server-side, it's optional, but Valve say "we generally think that any game that makes use of anti-cheat technology would benefit from letting players know".
I will always love Valve for their ability to use corpospeak against corpos.
Your game has anti-cheat?
Wonderful!
I'm sure that always only results in an improved experience for all gamers, lets let them all know!
=D
How does vac play into all of this then ...
Edit: I was talking about them labeling vac games as being anti cheat... And wondering if they were going to pull some double standard... I didn't know they label them already and still don't know if they do...
VAC is not kernel level, because surprise you don't actually need kernel level to do anti cheat well.
VAC games would just get the standard AC message banner, not the scary yellow kernel level warning banner.
... I am pretty sure VAC games have indicated on their store page that they use VAC for well over a decade.
It doesn't run at the kernel level?
That’s awesome! GTA V just screwed everyone on Linux! What a rug pull.
Adding kernel malware after the fact should entitle every single owner who requests one to a full refund no matter how long has passed.
Full agree. I do want some kind of policy for games that introduce anti-cheat both during early access and after release. Bricking a game you paid for should offer some sort of recourse.
That’s exactly what Valve did. The automated refund system wasn’t available, but you could request a manual review and cite the added anti cheat; Valve was refunding those who did so.
That should be any update if you can’t play the previous one
I feel like they're doing this because they are going so hard with steam deck. Regardless, good on Valve for doing this.
The steam deck is also amazing, such a nice piece of hardware. I've been gaming on Linux for years and I'm surprised how well it works. Feels like a console.
W steam/valve
I bought Sea of Thieves about 5 years ago. Recently, they added kernal-level anticheat (which does precisely fuck-all to actually stop cheating). While that is annoying, I'm not particularly worried because the studio that makes that game is owned by Microsoft, and like all Microsoft products, it was banished to my windows partition with the rest of the spyware.
Well... kernel level software can access everything on your computer. That includes other partitions and unmounted drives
Only if those other partitions are not encrypted. Sure, it could still wipe them - but that's something that backups are good for, and something you would certainly notice immediately :)
Anything sensitive is encrypted and I never decrypt it while running windows.
Can someone explain like I’m stupid on kernel level anti cheat and why I should watch out for it? Not a dig at all, a genuine question!
To put it very simply, the 'kernel' has significant control over your OS as it essentially runs above everything else in terms of system privileges.
It can (but not always) run at startup, so this means if you install a game with kernel-level anticheat, the moment your system turns on, the game's publisher can have software running on your system that can restrict the installation of a particular driver, stop certain software from running, or, even insidiously spy on your system's activity if they wished to. (and reverse-engineering the code to figure out if they are spying on you is a felony because of DRM-related laws)
It basically means trusting every single game publisher with kernel-level anticheat in their games to have a full view into your system, and the ability to effectively control it, without any legal recourse or transparency, all to try (and usually fail) to stop cheating in games.
More importantly, if traditional anticheat has a bug, your game dies. Oh no.
If kernel level anticheat has a bug, your computer blue screens (that's specifically what the blue screen is: a bug in the kernel, not just an ordinary bug that the system can recover from). Much worse. Sure hope that bug only crashes your computer when the game is running and not just whenever, because remember a kernel-level program can be running the moment your computer boots as above poster said
It's not just trust of the game developer. I honestly believe most of them just want to put out profitable games. It's trust that a hacker won't ever learn how to sign their code in a way that causes it to be respected as part of the game's code instructions.
There was some old article about how a black hat found a vulnerability in a signed virtual driver used by Genshin Impact. So, they deployed their whole infection package together with that plain driver to computers that had never been used for video games at all; and because Microsoft chose to trust that driver, it worked.
I wish I could find an article on it, since a paraphrased summary isn't a great source. This is coming from memory.
Thank you! Really clear and appreciate you taking the time to explain!
Making it super simple, it runs with full access on your machine, always. It can fuck anything up, and see everything. It can get your browser history, banking details or private messages you enter, activate your webcam or mic without you knowing, or brick your computer even.
And you can't even check what it's really doing on your computer because it's a crime under US law.
Finally, it can get hacked and other people than the creator can do all these to your computer as well,as it already happened once.
Easy, a bug in battle eye forced me to reinstall windows, this kernel access has to go.
Also, the most games that don't work in linux is for this reason (and steamdeck works in linux)
Imagine a game having higher privileges than what you get with "Run as administrator"
Common valve W
This will be helpful for discerning if a game can run on the Steam Deck. There's not many games that don't have verification (Either by Valve or ProtonDB) but for newer games with anticheat it will serve as a good rule of thumb i imagine
Lots of games with anti cheat auto work under wine/proton. The most on top of my head example is Elden ring. Runs fine on my desktop with arch, as well as my steam deck.
I think that's the main goal behind,
To avoid frustration for steamD owners and avoid a bad reputation of "all games are unplayable on it"
Why is kernel-level anti-cheat even a thing?
If I was trying to prevent cheating, I'd hash the relevant game files, encrypt the values, and hard-code them into the executable. Then when the game is launched, calculated the hash of the existing files and compare to the saved values.
What is gained by running anti-cheat in kernel mode? I only play single-player games, so I assume I'm missing something.
Because there are kernel-level cheats
What you proposed can very easily be bypassed without even needing kernel access by just editing the executable code that checks hashes to always return true
.... Buuut you can still defeat Kernel level Anti Cheats.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzIq04vd0M&t=2s&pp=2AECkAIB
Which means that you still have to end up relying on reviewing a player's performance and actions as recorded by the game servers statistically via complex statistical algorithms or machine learning to detect impossibly abnormal activity.
... Which is what VAC has been doing, without kernel level, for over a decade.
All that is gained from pushing AC to the kernel level is you ruin the privacy and system stability of everyone using it.
You don't actually stop cheating.
It is not possible to have a 100% full proof anti cheat system.
There will always be new, cleverer exploitation methods, just as there are with literally all other kinds of computer software, which all have new exploits that are detected and triaged basically every day.
But you do have a choice between using an anti cheat method that is insanely invasive and potentially dangerous to all your users, and one that is not.
Modern cheats for multiplayer games don't modify local files (or attribute values in memory), since the server validates everything anyway. They're about giving you information that's available but not shown in the game (like see-through walls, or exact skill ranges), or manipulate input (dodge enemy damage, easy combos). Those cheat can run in kernel mode (or at least evade detection from user mode), so the anti-cheat needs kernel mode to be more effective.
since the server validates everything anyway
Oh you sweet summer child.
The server doesn't validate shit, because that takes up CPU cycles on THEIR hardware, which costs them money. A huge part of kernel level anticheat is forcing YOU to pay the cost for anticheat, so they can squeeze a few more pennies out of it. And if your computer gets owned because they installed insecure, buggy malware on your system...? Well, they'll just deny. After all, it's kernel-level, how are YOU going to prove anything?
If server validation was still a common practice (as it should be) then cheats wouldn't come in the form of speed hacks, teleportation hacks, or invincibility. The traditional thing in CS that was hard to prevent is aimhacks and wallhacks. I respect that those are hard to prevent, but they can be much less impactful in modern hero shooters.
They can prevent you from running cheats that other anti-cheats can't detect. For instance, they could modify the value in memory so that your calculated hash always succeeds even when it's modified. This doesn't stop cheating though; it just means cheaters have to use cheat hardware that exists at a layer that even kernel anti-cheat can't detect.
And then a game gets updated so the hashes don't match and uh oh, everything is fucked. Oh, but we can change the hashes of the files in the executable! Yeah, so can they. People modding shit into the executable is basically a given. Let alone the fact that you'd need to sit through a steam "validation of files" length of time every time you'd need to launch a game (because validation works exactly as you have described).
What is gained is that it has access to more information. Some cheats use an entirely different program / process that reads memory and outputs info that is available to the game but hidden from the player. Like a client needs to know where a person on the other team is to be able to draw their model. So you read that, you put a little box over where they are, and bang you have wallhacks.
I think the popular thing now is to mod your mouse so it clicks on the enemy player's head.
You don't need to modify the files to modify data in memory.
I do everything important like banking etc on a separate device that isn't my gaming PC. This has been quite liberating since I worry less about invasive anti-cheat, drm etc. I realize not everyone wants to do this but it's been a nice compromise.
That's one way to do it, but I worry less about those things by not supporting them with my time and money.
For me anything important is done in the browser (very rarely) and mostly on the phone.
Probably a pessimistic take, but I don't expect this to have any discernable impact on sales, or any other effects that would discourage publishers from these practices. The average user doesn't care about or understand how these things work; they'll see an anti-cheat warning on the store page and think "Okay, tell the colonel I'll be on my best behavior then" and continue to buy the game.
It will benefit those that care and won't negatively impact the experience for those that don't.
Win, win.
Not to be annoying, but can someone please ELI5 how kernel level anti-cheat software actually works, or link good resources where I can read about it.
It runs with higher priveleges than you have and can see anything that happens on your computer.
It also creates a giant additional attack vector.
Eli5: your PC has different access levels a program can run at. This prevents a malicious or badly coded program from completely fucking your computer. Kernel level anti cheat runs at the lowest level access that exists under windows. It can do basically whatever it wants to your PC, and if a backdoor is coded in (happens way more than you'd think), it gives malware basically total access to your PC.
I wish Valve would just ban them. It's weird to have something that looks like pure malware in a Game store.
Luckily Valve seems to believe in freedom of decision for their users so they won't do this. There are kernel level cheats so there are kernel level anticheats. Obviously anticheats are mostly lame in what they do so it would probably be better for them to not be kernel level. Still there are "pure malware" anticheats and Valve thinks it's up to the user to decide if they want one, their job is to inform the user. And that's the best approach here in my opinion.
They will be gone with time, but not because anything that Valve does. Microsoft is locking down the kernel after the CrowdStrike debacle. In a few years it will be impossible to run any custom kernel code.
god damn right!
Nice.
Is this a Linux problem? I've never had to look for this detail before in Windows.
It does prevent Linux compatibility, but even if it didn't, it's a computer security problem, for those who care. You're essentially allowing different game companies to install a rootkit on your computer so you can play a video game.
Mostly, and even some Windows users don't want to install software that has such a great amount of permission over the entire system just for a game's anti-cheat.
It's nice that users can now know beforehand if a game uses such software. Avoids refunds.
No its common for anti-cheat on Windows to have full root permission to your entire system Windows users are just on average less intelligent, less concerned about privacy, and, more ignorant about technology. This doesn't mean using Windows makes you stupid its just the OS of choice for the stupid and ignorant.
I imagine the alternative way to combat kernel-level cheats would be asking player for all his game state data, validating it on a server?
Wouldn't work on peer-to-peer and you'd have to do a bunch of unnecessary compute(recalculating every tick if player-generated data is possible according to game rules) but its the only way I can think of.
Or bring server browsers back and let server mods handle it.
I've rarely, if ever, had a bad time using a server browser.
A more modern idea. Put all the chesters into the same lobbies through matchmaking
Or bring server browsers back and let server mods handle it.
How will you handle competitive matchmaking? I agree for casual matchmaking though
A more modern idea. Put all the chesters into the same lobbies through matchmaking
Maybe moderm in relative termy but notnreally. One of the articles I could find on the quick is from 4 years ago: https://www.ign.com/articles/cod-warzone-cheaters-are-being-matched-up-together-as-punishment
Most games already do this lol Cheats usually don't do anything that is technically impossible to do on a vanilla client, just highly improbable
True, can't think of how would you combat a cleverly written aim-bot.