Hardware cheats are slowly becoming the next phase for the hacking industry

While hacking and cheating have been a major issue in competitive games, it might metastasize with new hardware-based undetectable methods in the upcoming years.

Common cheats such as aimbot, wallhack, and infinite life have been plaguing video games for quite a while to give dishonest players a competitive edge.

Despite the plethora of rectifying measures implemented in the past decade, cheating has never been more prevalent than now with the rise of hardware-based hacks.

Unfortunately, these hacks result in not only snatching the award from deserving players but also ruining the entire community in the long run.

Over the years, developers have implemented dedicated anti-cheating software such as Valve’s VAC most commonly used in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, as well as Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat, utilized in Fortnite and Apex Legends. Riot Games’ Vanguard is infamous for gaining kernel-level access to prevent hacking in Valorant.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the next generation of cheating now available on console, and has been for a while but lately its been becoming more popular and more of a trend, consoles are no longer a safe space to play your games legit anymore pic.twitter.com/iEQzPVFf1h

— Anti-Cheat Police Department 🕵️ (@AntiCheatPD) July 5, 2021

But dishonesty always finds a way, as new kinds of hardware-based hacks have emerged that are virtually undetectable with anti-cheat software.

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The next generation of hacks utilizes hardware-based methods

The hardware-based hacks, which are prevalent on consoles, were first reported by the volunteer group Anti-Cheat Police Department over on Twitter.

They observed that hardware-based hacks, the next generation of cheating, are becoming rapidly prevalent on consoles. The Anti-Cheat Police Department said:

Hardware cheats will be the next evolution in the cheating scene they already exist but they will become more frequent in the future, anti-cheat vs cheats developers are true to the front battle of bleeding-edge technology in the infosec department both sides always innovate.

Hardware cheats will be the next evolution in the cheating scene they already exist but they will become more frequent in the future, anti-cheat vs cheats developers are the true for front battle of bleeding-edge technology in the infosec department both sides always innovate

— Anti-Cheat Police Department 🕵️ (@AntiCheatPD) July 5, 2021

The Anti-Cheat Police Department also debuted a video showcasing Call of Duty Warzone and how the cheat works. They explained it as:

The cheat uses machine learning and sends input to your controller whenever it sees a valid target, this is aim assist but more amplified without you even needing to do anything all you have to do is aim in the general area and the machine will do the work for you.

Is this detectable? yes, but it will be a pain for the developers to detect this it will certainly not be an easy job to detect these types of cheats, this already exists on PC but now is available in console

— Anti-Cheat Police Department 🕵️ (@AntiCheatPD) July 5, 2021

While the hardware implemented hacks are undetectable at the moment, hopefully that changes over time as game developers implement stronger anti-cheat systems.

However, this issue once again brings an unfortunate truth to the spotlight: some players will choose despicable ways to succeed in video games.