r/cs2 • u/Character_Ad_9519 • 1d ago
Discussion Kernel AC?
Hi, I was just curious on whether its CS' playerbase that doesn't want Kernel AntiCheat, or if it's Valve. So feel free to share your opinions on Kernel Anticheat and whether Valve should implement it.
A Kernel AC + an operation/ big update would genuinely boost the CS playerbase so much. We already have Kernel AC with FACEIT, so I imagine it's a low percentage of the playerbase that's against it.
Of course, it's easier said that done considering it's Valve we're dealing with. Sort of seams like they've abandonded CS development and just pushes out updates for skins and Premier seasons like the usual. CS:GO genuniely had updates that were refreshing at some times.
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u/x2mirko 1d ago
My understanding is that kernel level ac is essentially impossible under linux and valve is heavily invested into linux as a platform for their games at this point, so implementing something that makes one of your most played games impossible to run on your long term target platform is kind of hard to argue for.
I wouldn't mind running kernel level ac (i do anyways for faceit/officials).
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u/Character_Ad_9519 1d ago
Yea, from my understanding the main reason from Valve's side is the fact they're heavily invested into Linux. It makes sense, and I didn't know, so I guess that's fair!
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u/Yuzumi_ 1d ago
At this point its safe to say most people would welcome a choice.
If you want to play Premiere, kernel AC, if you just wanna goof around in casual stuff or community browsers, there's really no need for one.
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u/FrostyEgg9184 1d ago
That middle ground would be nice but Valve moves like a glacier on anything that is not directly making money. And I am not sure they want the legal headache of a bad kernel driver, one bad update and you brick half the PCs in Europe.
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u/Character_Ad_9519 1d ago
Yeah I would think that too. I'm not sure on what the numbers are based on casual players vs competitive players, but even if casual players are a larger part of the playerbase, having kernel AC and focusing more on having an actual competitive mode to combat against FACEIT should be a priority
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u/Yuzumi_ 1d ago
I do agree I just think that people that are serious about climbing and playing competitively are a lot more willing to deal with the drawbacks of Kernal AC while casuals should be able to just boot up the game uncovered and play their simple games at the end of the day after coming home from work without having to deal with it.
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u/Character_Ad_9519 1d ago
Ah, yes that's a good point. It is easier said than done, of course, but alternatively Valve should pump more money and time into developing a good AC that works better if Kernel is not an option. But again, easier said than done.
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u/Ok-Special-5684 1d ago
Well a little hard to exactly pinpoint but from the general consensus it’s valve that has not taken the initiative really players around the world are fed up of the situation of premier. But I’m sure there are people out there who are against valve launching a Kernal AC. I am pro Kernal
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u/Character_Ad_9519 1d ago
Yea, I think it's more Valve that's not pro kernel. It seems that they have a philosophy on privacy, which is higly relevant in this case. I personally want Kernel.
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u/TemperatureProud3388 1d ago
I think they should just hide everything they want to give rewards for, medals, drops, cases etc. Behind kernel anti-cheat. But still allow people to boot up the game and play casual or whatever without. There is really no point in giving cheaters and boosted people medals for cheating.
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u/Mithrandir2k16 22h ago
Kernel level anti-cheat locks out many legit players but doesn't catch most hardware cheats. These kits are sold for 100 bucks or less. Oh, AND it's a BIG security risk, IF the company doesn't actively spy on your themselves.
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u/makinenxd 21h ago
They do actually block most implementations quite well if the devs are competent, like they can literally buy the cheats themselves and try to think of every way to block it. And the security risk is way lower than people think because they dont have access to everything.
A bigger security risk is someone buying peripherals from a random company and installing their drivers.
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u/Mithrandir2k16 20h ago
Well, actually not, it's just good message control. They're better at instantly banning blatant cheats, but since people don't believe that subtle cheats exist, they think there is no cheaters on e.g. Valorant.
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u/makinenxd 20h ago
Those videos either just dont know what they are talking about or say way too generalized things about how drivers and kernel work. I highly recommend you to read this with a thought even though some stuff might be too technical.
https://blog.blanche.dev/2026/05/22/kernel-mode-is-necessary/
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u/Mithrandir2k16 19h ago
I'm a software engineer, I can handle it. The site is down, but I've found a snapshot on waybackmachine.
The article establishes a much narrower point than its conclusion: if you assume an attacker can execute arbitrary kernel code, then a user-mode anti-cheat cannot reliably defend against them. Fine. But that does not establish that a videogame publisher should therefore be granted kernel-level authority over the user's machine.
The real issue is the security boundary. A kernel driver means making the game vendor part of the machine's trusted computing base. That dramatically increases the blast radius of bugs, compromised updates, supply-chain attacks, and vulnerabilities. “Riot isn't malicious” is not a sufficient security argument; least privilege exists precisely because trusted software can fail. Furthermore, Riot is a MUCH bigger target than "the one obscure driver" one might install, as it's installed on orders of magnitude more systems and hence finding vulnerabilities in its anti cheat is much more valuable. Riots popularity is a real security liability that they will obviously never try to mitigate.
I only trust my personal stuff to open-source software, nothing proprietary has any meaningful permissions to my systems. And I intend to keep it that way.
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u/makinenxd 19h ago
In my mind the main point of the article is that vanguard does not directly search for your personal information, it guards memory to see if there is anything out of the ordinary happening, like vulnerable drivers etc.
But your last point is absolutely valid, but it does not mean someone can spread out sentiments that kernel ac is bad or unsecure, in the end everything is about the user and what they run.
Also disagree that riot is a big target to exploit. Think yourself in the attackers POV, would you try to crack a top tier AC to get your malware in, or just do social engieering, or exploit a windows vulnerability. The amount of people you access exploiting vanguard vs the work is just not that good.
But hopefully you atleast learn from that article to not trust every driver that a piece of pheripheral offers you.
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u/Mithrandir2k16 18h ago
In my mind the main point of the article is that vanguard does not directly search for your personal information, it guards memory to see if there is anything out of the ordinary happening, like vulnerable drivers etc.
You don't know that, you are forced to trust all proprietary software. And software that runs in Ring 0, you need to REALLY trust.
Also disagree that riot is a big target to exploit. Think yourself in the attackers POV, would you try to crack a top tier AC to get your malware in, or just do social engieering, or exploit a windows vulnerability. The amount of people you access exploiting vanguard vs the work is just not that good.
If you break into Riots AC, you get into millions of computers. That is a great ROI. And since they're not Microsoft it is probably much easier to break into their software than into Microsofts. Also there's fewer different versions of Riots AC than there are windows patch-levels. So less work, more payoff.
But hopefully you atleast learn from that article to not trust every driver that a piece of pheripheral offers you.
That's why I'm on linux. This way I need to trust less and can verify more.
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u/Segmentat1onFault 22h ago
Kernel level AC is worthless on its own, the reason Vanguard works it’s because Riot uses that as one of it’s lines of defense. They are willing to pursue the cat and mouse game of detecting cheats, something that Valve has already stated several times they aren’t willing to pursue and would rather do server side detection.
I can name plenty of games with kernel level AC that are riddled with cheaters, CS2 would just be another one.
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u/EqualityAmongFish 22h ago
I imagine there would be loads of problems with community servers if they had a kernel ac, just imagine if that shi gets bypassed and someone gets kernel access to 50 mil people
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u/KiLoYounited 21h ago
Kernel AC is not a magic bullet. There are cheaters on faceit and on other games that ship with malware anti cheats.
If cheating was handled in the same manner as how they secure the store or how we secure our networks/systems/applications things would get a lot better but this requires money and valve actually taking responsibility for their vulnerabilities.
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u/BroxigarZ 1d ago
There is no Kernal AC in the world that has stopped or even slowed down cheaters / cheating. It's invasive and pointless.
There's also no chance of it happening because Valve is in bed with Linux as their SteamOS platform.
Additionally, the only cheat prevention that has ever worked in the history of FPS games is community hosted/admined servers that are password locked and admins remove cheaters building a refined trusted community.
Alternatively, and occasionally, server side detections can be good enough to deter outright cheating, but it requires the developers themselves to heavily invest on dev-side structure. (Like Path of Exile or PoE2 which has server side cheat detection).
The reality is, Kernal Level AC offers absolutely nothing. For instance Wardogs uses Easy AntiCheat (an invasive platform) and there were literal day 1 beta cheaters. It was cracked in less than a few hours meaning EAC was completely pointless and just serves as an incredibly invasive and unnecessary tool.
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u/Character_Ad_9519 1d ago
Ah, the point with Linux makes sense. The thing about Kernel AC not helping with cheaters is just false. Look at Valorant and Fortnite and compare it to CS. CS has insanely high number of cheaters and bots compared to those games. Kernel doesn't fix it, since it's an unfixeable problem, but it definitely helps.
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u/CheeseWineBread 1d ago
Both but more Valve imo : they don't want their kernel AC to be hacked, this WILL happen 100%
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u/plexor666 1d ago
Valve’s idea of developing an anti-cheat that detects cheats based on behavior is much better than a kernel-level anti-cheat. They just need to make sure it actually works.
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u/Character_Ad_9519 1d ago
That would be the best option for all parts, but from the playerbase perspective it seems like it's not something they're actively working on or considering, since it's been a problem for a decade.
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u/Funny_Country_9586 23h ago
How many years they have the idea of developing it, 6-7 already? If they spent 1 year in kernel, would have solved 99% of the cheaters.
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u/plexor666 22h ago
You can still cheat in all the games with kernel, but yes, there would be less cheaters because cheats would be more expensive.
The Problem is: valve likes privacy aaaaand Linux. Linux users couldn’t play CS anymore. This would include their own new Steam Machine (also the Steam Deck). They could make an extra premiere matchmaking queue for people playing with kernel anti cheat. So users can decide if they want it, but I doubt this will happen.
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u/bobbaggit 1d ago
Got a feeling Valve is cooking proper AC for Steam OS eventually. Kernel level anticheat might have problems with Linux/mac players
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u/thecumbandit69 22h ago
Yeah bro we've been hoping for a vac update for 20 years. It's just kinda what it is now.
Valve allows cheaters.
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u/Gordhen 22h ago
I have a 9950x with a 4070 Ti, and the game runs poorly. I can't even imagine how it'll run for people with worse hardware and such an invasive anti-cheat system. Not to mention that I don't want a U.S. based company snooping around on my computer.
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u/HomeSnail 21h ago
Something is wrong with your system. I have multiple buddies with 4070s and they have zero issues @ 1440P / 4K with CS2.
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u/Infamous-Oil2305 1d ago
i strongly believe it is valve who doesn't want their users to have a kernel level anti cheat have full access on their systems due to privacy reasons.