Riot responds to concerns about 'Valorant's' new anti-cheat driver

Over the past few days, some Valorant players have raised concerns about the fact that the game’s anti-cheat driver (vgk.sys) runs as soon as you turn on your computer. Now, Riot Games, the new first-person shooter’s developer, has published a post explaining why its anti-cheat system works that way along with an assurance that it doesn’t collect any personal information.

Riot’s anti-cheat technology loads at start-up to counter advanced cheats that run before you even fire up the game. You can uninstall the vgk.sys driver anytime, but the game won’t run without it — Riot’s client won’t recognize your PC as a trusted machine if you do. The company says it only collects data for the operation of the game, though. And, in an earlier response to a Reddit thread discussing the issue, it explained that the driver doesn’t scan anything unless the game is running.

“We can’t get too deep into the technical specifics without potentially compromising Vanguard, but we’ll go as far as we safely can... plus we can assure you that it has been reviewed by both internal and external security experts,” Riot’s post reads. In an effort to assuage privacy concerns even further, Riot has also expanded its bug bounty program with a special category for anti-cheat vulnerabilities that fetch even higher payouts than usual.