Vanguard - A Cyber Security view

I have seen a lot of misinformation circulate about Vanguard. Streamers and content creators sign off about how it will improve league. I am not hear to disagree. My aim is for the community to have a bit more information from an enterprise cyber security and business prospective.

I do not care if you will continue to play league or think Vanguard is too much.

Before jumping into anything about Vanguard, Riot was breached in early January 2023, possibly a bit earlier in 2022 and reported in Jan 2023. Extremely important.

Kernel level access. This is basically God mode to your PC. Anything or anyone that has this access, can more or less do anything they want. They can read anything on your PC. They can manipulate anything on the machine. They can view anything on your network, though they might not be able to connect to it. It is possible, but not probable. Any cloud accounts connected, at the very least they could know it exists, if not access/read it if it auto syncs.

Always on/boot. This is exactly what it sounds like. Even if you are not using the product (League) Vanguard will still be ABLE to access almost anything. Running league or not, theoretically if you are on phub or doing taxes, Vanguard can pick up all this information. It can scan your network and see other devices on. Does your household use iPhone or Android, it COULD know.

Track record. Riot was breached in early 2023, possibly 2022. Anyone that breaches Riot in the future can have access to what Vanguard has access to. Working in Cyber, traditionally we do not offer more permissions to a company that was breached in order for them to provide a better experience. They offered a product, failed to secure their current offerings, and asking for more tie ins would not be considered. Win trading, smurfs, high elo moderation (which I personally disagree with, all moderation or no moderation, ask me why), client bugs, etc; have not been addressed. It is highly doubtful any of these items will be improved or addressed with Vanguard.

Pros. Cheating can be addressed using Vanguard. Since Vanguard has access to everything, while running League it can scan your PC's memory to see what is running concurrently accessing things League is doing. This is more than likely the way Vanguard will detect any cheating (at least on a basic level). Anyone caught doing anything malicious can be permanently banned via hardware IDs.

Business. Cyber Security is dictated by money in most businesses. There are industries where Cyber Security is an important aspect and runs alongside what the goal of the business is. Banks, government, military connected, and security software industries come to mind first. Fast food companies for instance may not invest or take a hard stance on security as a bank. This is expected. It is odd that Riot would take such an interest in a tool such as Vanguard with no obvious or guaranteed returns on investment. The cost to implement vs the gain in revenue I can't really figure out. Not to say it's not there, I personally just can't see it. Additionally, I cannot figure out the cost of a loss versus implementing Vanguard. As an example, if it costs $1000 US to run a server, $2000 to secure it and if breached the estimated cost of the breach would be $500, it is rarely considered worth it to secure a server. Vanguard hasn't been advertised as something that would secure League servers.

Personal Thoughts. I do not care if you play League or not. I personally find it weird that a company with a recent breach, asks for control of my system(s). Yes, it can help with cheaters, but that's a fraction of the issues that Riot has been quiet about addressing. Address the issues you have in your house first, before you ask for entry in to mine.

Final Thoughts. I dont want to dissuade anyone from playing League. I have loved this game for over 10 years. Even when I have felt the devs arent in it as much as I am. I would just like to present an honest view of Vanguard and hopefully have an opportunity for the community and the company to understand what the possibilities are of a tool such as Vanguard. I hope companies in the future stray away from tools like these, but I highly doubt it. The control is in the consumers hands, whether we are okay with such products or not.