Has Avast ever considered offering cheat protection to online game developers?

system · 2015-04-26T22:52:32.000Z

I’m an avid gamer. I’ve also been an avid Avast user for quite a few years. Anyone who games online knows how big a problem the use of cheats in online games is. Most online game developers have their own in house anti-cheat solutions, or they purchase the service from a provider like PunkBuster.

The problem is that most of the in house anti-cheat solutions are fairly easily fooled by those in the know, as are the third party anti-cheat services like PunkBuster. In my opinion this is because both the game developers and third party anti-cheat developers don’t have either the tools or the expertise to do the job properly.

Cheat applications are really a form of malware, and would best be countered by the kind of protection offered by a security suite such as that offered by Avast. If cheats were detected using signatures, the way viruses and malware are, the anti-cheat solutions would be much more difficult to circumvent, in part because it would take much more than a cosmetic change to the executables to fool the anti-cheat application.

Another problem is that many clients are resistant to anti-cheat solutions. Of course those that use cheats will always be resistant to the use of anti-cheat solutions, but many of those who do not trust anti-cheat solutions do so primarily out of ignorance. If an anti-cheat solution were packaged as a lightweight malware solution, such as that offered by the ESET online scanner, that scanned only running processes and the boot sector, with the addition of a live scanning component, and scanned not only for cheats, but for all forms of malware, it would be much easier to “sell” the solution to clients, not only as anti-cheat solution, but as a security solution for their clients.

I know that Avast is always looking for acceptable ways to monetize their services, and this might well be one way. While the anti-cheat client solution would have to be lightweight, and not conflict with other security applications, the opportunity would be there to offer the client access to the full security services that Avast offers, with the anti-cheat solution integrated into it. And one would think it would not involve a great outlay of development bandwidth for Avast, with the expectation that game developers would be willing to pay for what could be a truly revolutionary service.

Para-Noid · 2015-04-26T22:57:57.000Z

How would avast know if someone is cheating? ???
Cheating is not a virus nor is it security related.
Cheating is “copyright” related and avast is not about copyright protection.

edit: typo

DavidR · 2015-04-26T23:24:05.000Z

Most gamer companies already have an anti-cheat and they operate at a pretty low level. Sometimes avast even alerts on the cheats because of how they work.

In order to write an anti-cheat, they would have to have an in depth knowledge of the game.

system · 2015-04-29T16:18:31.000Z

Para-Noid post:2:

How would avast know if someone is cheating? ???
Cheating is not a virus nor is it security related.
Cheating is “copyright” related and avast is not about copyright protection.

edit: typo

Cheating is certainly security related. It directly affects the bottom line of the companies involved. It drives clients away. Cheats and cheat applications are very often used to farm in game commodities that the player might otherwise buy because of the time involved in farming them, depending on the monetization model used by the game developers (as in “free to play” vs. subscription). And when you get to certain levels it can impact on prizes and sponsorship. It is a form of theft.

Cheat applications are also often used to steal account information, and install other forms of malware, so yes, cheat applications are definitely a security issue.

system · 2015-04-29T16:23:24.000Z

DavidR post:3:

Most gamer companies already have an anti-cheat and they operate at a pretty low level. Sometimes avast even alerts on the cheats because of how they work.

In order to write an anti-cheat, they would have to have an in depth knowledge of the game.

I guess what I am talking about is cheat applications. The use of exploits would be in the purview of the game developers. But for cheat applications, all a company like Avast would need would be a signature, just like they do for any virus or malware. And I think they would do a better job of detecting those than most in house anti-cheat applications - especially for smaller game development studios that don’t have the development bandwidth available to develop their own robust anti-cheat applications in house.

DavidR · 2015-04-29T17:21:19.000Z

Since avast already detects some anti-cheats because of the way they work - they are probably more concerned about not detecting legitimate anti-cheat applications.

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