Ubisoft have announced that their third-person hero-based melee fighting game FOR HONOR will be blocking all SteamOS / Linux players on September 10th.
I wonder how much more analytics they have access to with them because I doubt they have the intention of infecting customers with actual viruses and I can’t think of any other reason they would have such a big boner for them other than harvesting more data to sell.
When I say “viruses” I refer to the anti-cheats themselves. Like, exactly because of what you said: they live at kernel-level (sometimes even at a lower level, like Vanguard), so they can literally see anything you do (and everything you don’t), and everything you have (and everything you don’t) and exfiltrate all that data without your knowledge, much less your consent, if that’s not a virus (more specifically, a rootkit)…
C’mon, they can even brick your PC, as it’s demonstrated that for example Vanguard does:
Independent research & analysis on Riot Vanguard / kernel-level anti-cheat:
Dorner & Klausner (2024) — “If It Looks Like a Rootkit and Deceives Like a Rootkit: A Critical Examination of Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat Systems” (peer-reviewed, ACM ARES 2024)
Check Point Research (Aug 2026) — “BTR Reforged”: Microsoft’s own signed BTR.sys driver weaponized as a universal kernel operation engine (no vulnerability required)
Shattered.io (2026) — Comprehensive overview: the DMA “bricking” incident, the four UEFI CVEs, Kunal Ganglani’s statement on unaudited kernel drivers, and the Genshin Impact mhyprot2.sys BYOVD precedent
I wonder how much more analytics they have access to with them because I doubt they have the intention of infecting customers with actual viruses and I can’t think of any other reason they would have such a big boner for them other than harvesting more data to sell.
When I say “viruses” I refer to the anti-cheats themselves. Like, exactly because of what you said: they live at kernel-level (sometimes even at a lower level, like Vanguard), so they can literally see anything you do (and everything you don’t), and everything you have (and everything you don’t) and exfiltrate all that data without your knowledge, much less your consent, if that’s not a virus (more specifically, a rootkit)…
C’mon, they can even brick your PC, as it’s demonstrated that for example Vanguard does:
Independent research & analysis on Riot Vanguard / kernel-level anti-cheat:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.00500
PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.00500
https://gist.github.com/gmh5225/2b430b6025c8888196dd95c8557bfc6f
https://archie-osu.github.io/2025/04/11/vanguard-research.html
https://arxiv.org/html/2512.21377v1
https://blog.quarkslab.com/exploiting-lenovo-driver-cve-2025-8061.html
https://blog.quarkslab.com/exploiting-lenovo-driver-cve-2025-8061_part2.html
https://zonifer.dev/posts/byovd-kernel-driver-hardware-primitives.html
https://research.checkpoint.com/2026/btr-reforged-weaponizing-defenders-remediation-driver-as-a-kernel-operation-primitive/
https://shattered.io/vanguard-anti-cheat-2026/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-level_anti-cheat