Valorant's Anti-Cheat Measures Damage Cheaters' SSDs

Valorant employs Riot Games' Vanguard, a kernel-level anti-cheat system that operates continuously. While traditional software-based cheats are largely ineffective, some cheaters resort to PCIe Direct Memory Access (DMA) devices with custom firmware to bypass Vanguard.

These DMA devices, paired with NVMe or SATA SSDs, connect to a second computer where cheats are executed. The cheats access the main PC's memory, enabling wallhacks, aimbots, and other exploits. The May 2026 update to Vanguard strengthens IOMMU enforcement, causing repeated page faults and restarts that corrupt the DMA device's firmware and potentially the SSD. Although this damage can be reversed, it serves as a significant deterrent.

How to Prepare: Regular players don't need to take any action. If you are a legitimate player, your system is not at risk. For those using DMA devices for cheating, be aware of the potential hardware damage.

Who This Affects Most: This primarily affects individuals who employ hardware-level cheats in Valorant. Legitimate players are not impacted.

No, only cheaters using specialized DMA hardware are at risk.

While the update can render the hardware unusable, it can technically be reversed by flashing new firmware.

Input-Output Memory Management Unit, a hardware-level component leveraged by Vanguard to disrupt DMA devices.

Do you think this anti-cheat measure is effective? Let us know in the comments!

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