Analysis on modern game anti-cheat

analysis on modern game anti-cheat

A brief overview of anti-cheats

Anti-cheats have been in games for about two decades or more already. Anti-cheat systems such as Punkbuster are one of the earlier products that was implemented or integrated into games

The necessity of anti-cheats

Anti-cheats are extremely important to games now as there are many people looking to cheat in games for various reasons – be it money, fun or winning.Regardless of the reason, it always has a detrimental effect to other innocent players, and to the game community and economy.

With information, software and tools readily available with a quick search on google, people are easily able to find ways to cheat in games. These people are often known as Script Kiddies

Current outlook of cheaters

Statistics show that script kiddies make up for about 90% of the hackers in the world. About 6-8% are intermediately skilled, while a measly 2-4% are advanced in this field.

Current outlook of anti-cheats

As cheaters get more advanced, so must the anti-cheats. However, this is a cat and mouse game that unfortunately favors the cheaters or hackers. This is because anti-cheat systems are often reactive security rather than proactive security.

Conclusion

As long as a game exist, it will be targeted by hackers.As long as the game can be ran or played, it can be hacked and probably will sooner or later. The key is to limit and control whatever data that is important (such as in-game currency) on the server side, rather than on the client side(which is the game)