You just got hardware banned and you're trying to figure out which anti-cheat system got you and how it actually works. Here's the thing — most players have no idea what these systems are actually doing under the hood. They think anti-cheat is just scanning for cheat software, but that's barely scratching the surface.

Modern anti-cheat systems are building complete hardware fingerprints of your machine. They're pulling your disk serial number, your MAC address, your motherboard UUID, and sometimes even your monitor's EDID data. Understanding how the top anti cheat software operates is the first step to understanding why you got banned and what your options actually are.

Let me break down the most trusted anti-cheat tools used by major gaming platforms and explain exactly what each one detects.

Easy Anti Cheat and How It Fingerprints Your Hardware

Easy Anti-Cheat, or EAC, is probably the anti cheat software you've encountered most often. It protects titles like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Rust, and Rocket League. If you've dealt with a Rocket League Easy Anti-Cheat HWID ban, you know how aggressive this system can be.

So the way it works is EAC operates at the kernel level, meaning it has deep access to your system. When you launch a protected game, the EAC driver queries multiple hardware identifiers through IOCTL calls. It's pulling your disk drive serial number directly from firmware, not the volume serial that changes when you format.

Here's what EAC specifically collects for its device fingerprint:

  • Disk serial numbers from all connected drives
  • Network adapter MAC addresses
  • Motherboard UUID from SMBIOS tables
  • GPU identifier information
  • Registry fingerprints from specific Windows keys
  • RAM serial numbers in some configurations

The important part is that EAC combines all these data points into a single hardware fingerprint. Change just one identifier and the fingerprint still matches because it's using multiple identifiers together. That's why just spoofing your MAC address alone doesn't work anymore.

When EAC issues a hardware ban, that fingerprint gets added to their database. Every time someone with a matching fingerprint tries to connect, they're flagged immediately. This is why you made a new account and got banned again within an hour.

BattlEye Detection Methods Explained

BattlEye protects games like PUBG, Rainbow Six Siege, DayZ, and Escape from Tarkov. It's one of the best anti-cheat PC games 2026 rely on, and for good reason — it's extremely thorough in how it identifies your machine.

BattlEye runs as a kernel-level driver that loads early in your boot sequence. According to BattlEye's documentation, the system scans for both cheat software and hardware identifiers simultaneously. This dual approach makes it particularly difficult to evade.

What makes BattlEye different from EAC is how it handles hardware-level bans. BattlEye appears to weight certain identifiers more heavily than others. Your motherboard serial and disk serial number seem to be primary identifiers, while MAC address changes might not immediately trigger detection if other identifiers remain clean.

BattlEye collects:

  • Primary disk serial numbers
  • Motherboard UUID and BIOS information
  • Network adapter identifiers
  • Installation-specific registry data
  • Volume serial numbers as secondary markers
  • TPM data when available

The other thing about BattlEye is its ban wave system. Rather than banning immediately upon detection, BattlEye often collects data and issues bans in waves. This makes it harder to determine exactly what triggered the detection because there's a delay between the flagging event and the actual ban.

Riot Vanguard and Why It Runs at Boot

Vanguard is Riot Games' anti-cheat for Valorant and League of Legends. It's probably the most controversial of the trusted anti-cheat software gaming platforms use because it runs continuously from system boot, not just when you launch the game.

Here's why that matters for hardware identification. Because Vanguard loads at boot, it captures your hardware identifiers before any spoofing tools have a chance to run. Most HWID spoofers need to load before the anti-cheat driver initializes. With Vanguard starting at boot, this timing window essentially disappears unless you're using very specific methods.

Vanguard's machine ID collection includes:

  • Complete SMBIOS data dumps
  • All disk serial numbers including external drives
  • Full network adapter enumeration
  • Motherboard and BIOS identifiers
  • GPU serial information
  • Monitor EDID data in some cases

Riot's support pages explain that Vanguard is designed to ensure system integrity from the moment Windows loads. From a technical perspective, this means Vanguard has the most comprehensive view of your actual hardware because it sees your system before anything else loads.

If you're dealing with a Vanguard hardware ban, you need to understand that simple registry cleaning or formatting won't help. Vanguard has already captured your hardware serial numbers at the firmware level.

RICOCHET and Kernel Level Detection

Activision's RICOCHET anti-cheat protects Call of Duty titles including Warzone. It's another kernel-level system that takes hardware fingerprinting seriously.

RICOCHET collects a comprehensive device fingerprint that includes standard identifiers like disk serials and MAC addresses, but it also appears to collect some unique data points. Player reports suggest RICOCHET may track peripheral devices and USB identifiers in addition to core hardware.

What makes RICOCHET particularly challenging is its machine learning detection. Beyond just hardware fingerprinting, RICOCHET analyzes gameplay patterns to identify accounts that might be connected to previously banned players. Even with completely clean hardware identifiers, playing the exact same way as your banned account could potentially flag you.

Other Anti Cheat Systems in Top Titles

Beyond the big three, several other anti cheat systems protect popular games:

nProtect GameGuard powers many Korean MMOs and titles like Throne & Liberty. It's known for aggressive kernel-level scanning and collects extensive hardware ID data.

PunkBuster is older but still protects some Battlefield titles and other games. Its HWID ban system is less sophisticated than modern solutions but still tracks hardware identifiers effectively.

XIGNCODE3 protects various titles and has specific detection methods that differ from Western anti-cheat solutions.

Each system has its own approach to hardware ban implementation. Understanding which anti-cheat your game uses is crucial because the identifiers they prioritize vary.

Why Surface Level Fixes Fail Against Modern Anti Cheat

I guarantee most of you tried just making a new account and got banned again within hours. That's because you don't understand what these systems are actually tracking.

A lot of people think reformatting their drive is enough. It's not. A format changes your volume serial number, sure, but your disk's hardware serial number stays the same — it's burned into the firmware. The anti-cheat reads the hardware serial, not the volume serial.

Similarly, changing your IP with a VPN does nothing for a hardware ban. IP addresses aren't part of your hardware fingerprint. VPNs protect your network identity, not your machine identity.

Even swapping a single component like your network card only addresses one identifier when the anti-cheat is pulling five or six. Do you see why partial solutions fail?

What Actually Gets Tracked in a Hardware Fingerprint

Let me be specific about what you're dealing with. Modern anti-cheat systems in top titles build fingerprints from:

  • Disk serial numbers pulled directly from drive firmware via IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY
  • MAC addresses from every network adapter including virtual ones
  • Motherboard UUID from SMBIOS tables that Windows exposes
  • GPU identifiers from your graphics card
  • Registry fingerprints from specific installation paths and Windows identifiers
  • BIOS information including vendor and version strings

The hardware ID changer or spoofer you use needs to address all of these simultaneously, and it needs to do so before the anti-cheat driver initializes. Miss any one of them and the fingerprint still has enough matching data points to identify you.

What You Need to Know Moving Forward

Understanding how anti-cheat detection actually works puts you in a better position to make informed decisions. Whether you're dealing with a false positive ban or trying to understand your options, knowing the technical reality helps.

If you're looking at HWID spoofer options, you need tools that operate at the kernel level and address all the identifiers your specific anti-cheat collects. Surface-level tools that only change your MAC address or registry values are basically useless against modern systems.

You should also understand that this is a constant cat-and-mouse game. Anti-cheat developers update their detection methods regularly. What works today might not work in three months. Any solution you consider needs active development and updates to stay ahead of detection.

Recap

So to kind of recap — the top anti cheat software in 2026 all share one thing in common: they build comprehensive hardware fingerprints from multiple identifiers. EAC, BattlEye, Vanguard, and RICOCHET each have their own specific methods, but they're all pulling your disk serials, MAC addresses, motherboard UUIDs, and more.

Understanding which identifiers each system prioritizes helps you understand why certain methods fail and what's actually required to address a hardware-level ban. The anti-cheat systems in top titles are more sophisticated than ever, and the old tricks from 2021 simply don't work anymore.

If you have questions about specific anti-cheat systems or need to understand your situation better, the community Discord is a good resource. And if you're dealing with a ban right now, don't panic and start trying random fixes — that's how you make things worse.

Stay safe out there.