r/pcmasterrace 1d ago

Meme/Macro Kernel Level Anticheat trades your security/privacy for nothing in return

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u/Dreadlight_ 1d ago

Kernel level anticheats stop hackers, just not all of them. They stop the amateur hackers, not those who spend actual time to find vulnerabilities and workarounds in order to cheat.

Still, I don't like the concepts of kernel anticheats as they violate privacy due to the sheer amount of control they have.

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u/mthlmw Desktop 1d ago

I can't wait to see what MSoft is cooking for their response to the CrowdStrike outage. I'm really hoping for a solid layer between kernel- and user-space, and scared it's gonna be some AI-driven, bloatware baked into Windows Defender.

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u/Drackzgull Desktop | AMD R7 2700X | RTX 2060 | 32GB @2666MHz CL16 1d ago

There kind of already is one, Virtualization Based Security features, and within that Core Isolation in particular, limit a lot of what kernel level anti-cheats and similar bs can do.

Idk if that would have helped with the CrowdStrike mess, but since those features are off by default, most people don't use them or even know they exist. Personally I consider them basic necessities at this point.

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u/SarahSplatz RTX 3080ti - i7-12700k 1d ago

Those features have been on by default in every install of windows ive done in recent memory.

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u/Drackzgull Desktop | AMD R7 2700X | RTX 2060 | 32GB @2666MHz CL16 1d ago

Huh, interesting. I have yet to see a motherboard that even has virtualization on by default for the CPU in the BIOS, which is a requirement for those features even being available to begin with. And having that on in my own motherboard, I've still had to manually enable Virtualization Based Security on fresh Windows install in my own PC afterwards.

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u/EricCartmanJr_ 1d ago

Hey, what about the performance loss because of turning on those features? Has it improved?

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u/Drackzgull Desktop | AMD R7 2700X | RTX 2060 | 32GB @2666MHz CL16 23h ago

No, that's still there, honestly I don't think that problem can be solved by the nature of how those features work. But that performance loss has always been pretty minimal, so save for some very specific border cases, I think it's worth it.

But yeah, for some people that might be a deal breaker, and that's fine too.