Does VAC ban cheaters second account?

[1337Kyuki1337]

This question has hit me today.

Is it possible for VAC to ban the cheaters second account without him actually cheating on that account, but only the first?

[Russian_Sausage]

That would be the stupidest thing possibly. Imagine someone hijacked a few accounts and starts cheating and everyone gets a bust.

[Port_A_Build]

Originally Posted by 1337Kyuki1337

This question has hit me today.

Is it possible for VAC to ban the cheaters second account without him actually cheating on that account, but only the first?

Not possible. Besides, there would be difficulty determining between an alternate and another person's account.

[Akvalier]

VAC only bans accounts whose memory hash matches a blacklisted hash.
As memory hashes are generated and checked when you luanch and as you play the game, other accounts should be safe.

However, the best bet is to not cheat at all, so you will not have to worry about it.

[ChaosBahamut]

No.

HOWEVER (and for the sake of argument, let's just pretend you were cheating and you did get VAC banned) if you didn't completely remove whatever cheats you may have been using and you play on a VAC server on your second account then VAC will detect the cheat remnants that are still on your computer and that'll be that. Hence why it is always recommended to reformat before starting over with a new account.


Course it's also recommended you not cheat in the first place so I'd suggest you stay clean.

[taatuu25]

Originally Posted by Russian_Sausage

That would be the stupidest thing possibly. Imagine someone hijacked a few accounts and starts cheating and everyone gets a bust.

Except that that the hijacker can get you vac banned simply by cheating on the hijacked account

[Akvalier]

Your account - your responsibility.

I have no sorry for those who get their accounts hijacked - their fault.
It does not take a rocket scientist to keep your password private, your passwords strong, your password separate, or even, to read a scam email and know it is scam.

Originally Posted by taatuu25

Except that that the hijacker can get you vac banned simply by cheating on the hijacked account

[Death{-*}$hot]

Originally Posted by 1337Kyuki1337

This question has hit me today.

Is it possible for VAC to ban the cheaters second account without him actually cheating on that account, but only the first?

Thankfully not

[gashadokuro]

Originally Posted by Akvalier

Your account - your responsibility.

I have no sorry for those who get their accounts hijacked - their fault.
It does not take a rocket scientist to keep your password private, your passwords strong, your password separate, or even, to read a scam email and know it is scam.

It's not about being a rocket scientiest, but just laziness. My steam password and email password are both seperate, both have a lot of characters/numbers and i change then evey so often so it's pretty much a dead-end for a hijacker to get me. If people would follow those small and easy steps they could easy avoid these problems and wouldn't have to make up and excuse that they're account was "hacked" or "hijacked" in hopes of getting around their own failed cheat.

[Blazer71]

Originally Posted by gashadokuro

It's not about being a rocket scientiest, but just laziness. My steam password and email password are both seperate, both have a lot of characters/numbers and i change then evey so often so it's pretty much a dead-end for a hijacker to get me. If people would follow those small and easy steps they could easy avoid these problems and wouldn't have to make up and excuse that they're account was "hacked" or "hijacked" in hopes of getting around their own failed cheat.

Originally Posted by Akvalier

Your account - your responsibility.

I have no sorry for those who get their accounts hijacked - their fault.
It does not take a rocket scientist to keep your password private, your passwords strong, your password separate, or even, to read a scam email and know it is scam.

^This.

[wtfpwnd?]

Originally Posted by Akvalier

Your account - your responsibility.

I have no sorry for those who get their accounts hijacked - their fault.
It does not take a rocket scientist to keep your password private, your passwords strong, your password separate, or even, to read a scam email and know it is scam.

But at the same time it doesn't take a rocket scientist to get a trojan/virus onto your PC. There's exploits and vulnerabilities in even the most popular websites, all it takes is for you to visit one of your favourite sites that hasn't yet realised that they've been compromised, whether it's their site itself or some ad (flash exploit or whatever) that's on their site.

No Anti-Virus is 100% guaranteed to catch the latest virus either. Yes, the best we can do is use an AV, ad-block feature, no-script, etc. but someone will find their way around it all. These hacker-types are clever little bastards.

[Akvalier]

And this is why multilayer security is present in all of the second to first tier website/applications.
Blizzard has an authenticator.
This was their step to stop exploits/injectors/malware from using your information.
Microsoft and other top tier companies use telephone and alternate email authentication.
Small game companies like Grinding Gear Games ( Path of Exile)
use email code authentication.
Steam Guard uses email code authentication as well.


So I repeat: Your account, your responsibility.
I have never been hacked. I've never had my email 'scammed'.
I have received scam emails, but no part of any of my data has been fished.
It doesn't take a genious to do these steps to protect yourself. It only takes a kitten's milk worth of intelligence.

( Most stolen accounts are stolen by friends, or are voluntarily given away. Such as in emails with 'respond with your username/password or we delete you'.)
So you protect yourself doing the following:
Never use the same password on any website.
Make sure your passwords are at least 8 characters long, with at least an Uppercase letter, a lowercase number, and a symbol. Do not use words in passwords.
Change your passwords every 90 at least.
I change mine every month ( habit, but is enforced at the workplace)
Do not tell your password to anyone.
Do not download illegal programs.
Do not download cheat engines of any sort.
Always sign out or lock your computer when not in use.
And as stated before.
DO NOT TELL YOUR PASSWORDS TO ANYONE. This includes your mother, your father, your brother, sister, stepfamily, your boss, your children, or your pet chinchilla.
Your account - your responsibility.

Originally Posted by wtfpwnd?

But at the same time it doesn't take a rocket scientist to get a trojan/virus onto your PC. There's exploits and vulnerabilities in even the most popular websites, all it takes is for you to visit one of your favourite sites that hasn't yet realised that they've been compromised, whether it's their site itself or some ad (flash exploit or whatever) that's on their site.

No Anti-Virus is 100% guaranteed to catch the latest virus either. Yes, the best we can do is use an AV, ad-block feature, no-script, etc. but someone will find their way around it all. These hacker-types are clever little bastards.

[Port_A_Build]

Originally Posted by Akvalier

And this is why multilayer security is present in all of the second to first tier website/applications.
Blizzard has an authenticator.
This was their step to stop exploits/injectors/malware from using your information.
Microsoft and other top tier companies use telephone and alternate email authentication.
Small game companies like Grinding Gear Games ( Path of Exile)
use email code authentication.
Steam Guard uses email code authentication as well.


So I repeat: Your account, your responsibility.
I have never been hacked. I've never had my email 'scammed'.
I have received scam emails, but no part of any of my data has been fished.
It doesn't take a genious to do these steps to protect yourself. It only takes a kitten's milk worth of intelligence.

( Most stolen accounts are stolen by friends, or are voluntarily given away. Such as in emails with 'respond with your username/password or we delete you'.)
So you protect yourself doing the following:
Never use the same password on any website.
Make sure your passwords are at least 8 characters long, with at least an Uppercase letter, a lowercase number, and a symbol. Do not use words in passwords.
Change your passwords every 90 at least.
I change mine every month ( habit, but is enforced at the workplace)
Do not tell your password to anyone.
Do not download illegal programs.
Do not download cheat engines of any sort.
Always sign out or lock your computer when not in use.
And as stated before.
DO NOT TELL YOUR PASSWORDS TO ANYONE. This includes your mother, your father, your brother, sister, stepfamily, your boss, your children, or your pet chinchilla.
Your account - your responsibility.

And:
Have anti-virus protection with real-time protection.
Be safe on the internet so you don't get viruses.

[Akvalier]

Im not talking about /Cheat Engine/ itself.
I was using it as a generic term, and my statement is meant for those very special cases [sarcasm]that do not know what they are downloading.

Cheat Engine can be used in many legal ways, but should not be used for online games.
Cheat Engine was not built for online games.
I use Cheat Engine to reverse engineer many softwares where the TOS and EULA does not forbid reverse engineering, modification or disassembly of their code.

Originally Posted by flarn2006

From my experiences, even having it running while connected to a VAC-secured server won't trigger a ban, as long as it's not attached to a VAC-protected game. I've left it running before (after hacking in Sonic Adventure 2) while connected to a server, so I contacted Valve support to be sure, and they said my account was not flagged to be banned. It's been more than two months since then, and I still haven't been banned.

[jmaster299]

Originally Posted by flarn2006

VAC does not detect cheats unless they are actually running. It doesn't scan your hard drive. Therefore, unless a cheat program is set to run on startup (which I can't think of any reason why it would) a reboot should be sufficient to clear everything out.



I don't think "cheat engine" is a generic term. It's the name of one specific program, which has many legitimate uses (like hacking single-player games) that VAC won't and shouldn't ban for. Having it installed on your computer isn't enough to trigger a VAC ban. From my experiences, even having it running while connected to a VAC-secured server won't trigger a ban, as long as it's not attached to a VAC-protected game. I've left it running before (after hacking in Sonic Adventure 2) while connected to a server, so I contacted Valve support to be sure, and they said my account was not flagged to be banned. It's been more than two months since then, and I still haven't been banned.

Incorrect. VAC does in fact scan your HDD and so do many other anti-cheat systems for games. The scanning is limited to the same HDD partition that the game is installed on, in most cases, but it is still scans for illegal programs and modified game files.

Those modified game files are the main reason why the HDD is actually scanned. It's because it's possible to manually, or through the use of a program, to modify game files to give someone an unfair advantage.

Modifying game files is the most common way people cheat/hack in Borderlands 2. But Borderlands 2 is not a VAC secure game so modifying it's files can not earn you a VAC ban. I am not promoting the changing of game files as you can still be caught by 2K and Steam and action can still be taken against you for violation the ToS of both the game and Steam.

But people do modify files in order to cheat in VAC secure games like CS and people do get caught and banned by the VAC system for it. Wall hacking, as in being able to see players through walls, is commonly achieved by modifying a game file to make certain textures transparent. People can make the modification via a program but that program does not need to be running or even installed any more after the modification is made in order for the cheat to work.

That is why certain servers use strict sv_pure 0 settings in Source games. It will block any custom or modified textures like wall hacks but also things like sprays and custom character models. Servers default to sv_pure 1 as it will allow things like skins and sprays but some server block all that in order to block cheaters and to also not have to put up with offensive sprays.

As I said before, other companies will scan your HDD too. An example of that is Blizzard. They scan for cheat programs, modified files and for installations of different versions of WoW that people would use to access illegal private WoW servers.

It is nice that you admit to cheating in your post though.