Riot Games is really, really worried about security in Valorant. The company has promised a “bug bounty” of up to $100,000 for anyone who can find reliable methods to exploit a glitch within Valorant.
According to a statement on HackerOne:
Alongside our new game VALORANT, we have deployed our new anti-cheat solution Vanguard that leverages a kernel driver to combat cheaters more effectively. To reinforce our commitment to our players’ security, we are offering special bounties for up to $100,000 for high quality reports that demonstrate practical exploits leveraging the Vanguard kernel driver.
Essentially, Riot wants players to bash against their security system with all their might in order to discover its weaknesses. Last week, the company defended its use of a security driver that scans the player’s PC at startup. This bounty hunt is the next step in perfecting Valorant before its official launch.
Bounty hunting in Valorant
There are various security threats that Riot wants to address in Valorant, each with their own level of bounty. A local attack method of accessing players’ personal data is worth $25,000. A network-level attack earns the big bucks. The highest bounties go to anyone who can show off a network attack that doesn’t even require user interaction. This kind of security flaw could be catastrophic for the finished game.
Riot is far from the first company to offer bounties for eager bug catchers. The theory is that, if a game can survive white hat hackers giving it their all, it’ll also survive malicious attacks in the future. The point of Valorant‘s ongoing closed beta is to test all aspects of the game. This includes making sure players can’t use it to steal valuable information.
While plans are still very much in their early stages, Riot has high hopes of turning Valorant into the next big service game. The current beta is only the beginning.
