Is Ubisoft thwarting cheaters with “100 versions” of Rainbow Six Siege? - Ars Technica

Another update? —

New versions "every 2 hours" could diagnostic small, obfuscating codification changes.

Kyle Orland - Nov 17, 2022 5:01 p.m. UTC

Enlarge / One broadside of this representation is the cheat-makers' and 1 is the Ubisoft developers', but we're frankly not definite which is which...

Last week, Ubisoft announced an "important information update" to forestall cheating connected the fashionable Rainbow Six Siege. And portion Ubisoft said it "cannot stock details of the update successful bid to support its integrity," anti-cheat watchers deliberation the developer mightiness beryllium thwarting cheat-makers utilizing an absorbing signifier of codification obfuscation and frequent, semi-randomized crippled updates.

The fashionable Anti-Cheat Police Department Twitter relationship (ACPD) noted past week that "every 2 hours, a caller unsocial physique of R6 shows up," citing SteamDB tracking data showing dozens of updates implicit a substance of days. The game's predominant Steam updates look to person stopped conscionable arsenic Ubisoft temporarily rolled backmost its caller information features successful bid to instrumentality fixes Wednesday, further establishing the link.

Prominent Rainbow Six data-mining relationship ScriptLeaksR6 also explained past week that Siege "has a caller strategy successful spot wherever immoderate [PC players] get customized builds of the game." The proliferation of dozens of antithetic versions of the crippled successful a abbreviated play means "cheat devs efficaciously request to update 100 versions of the crippled to get their cheat to work," arsenic ScriptLeaksR6 puts it.

Hey, where’d that adaptable go?

Speaking to PC Gamer, New Avalon's Paul Chamberlain (who antecedently worked connected Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat system) noted that generating "new versions" of the crippled could beryllium arsenic elemental arsenic shuffling the representation bid of variables oregon logic flags wrong immoderate in-game programming structures oregon changing a azygous encryption cardinal utilized for server communication. In each case, those tiny changes could necessitate a full-scale rewrite of a cheat motor to relationship for the caller representation locations of important information.

ACPD besides says that the aggregate versions volition "[make] cheat devs enactment adjacent harder," citing 1 cheat shaper who noted successful a backstage forum that "there volition not beryllium a azygous solution for each users."

While Chamberlain says this could beryllium an "effective" anti-cheat system, helium notes that it comes with a batch of "operational complexity." Because of that complexity, helium speculates that Ubisoft developed galore abstracted Rainbow Six builds earlier the caller information strategy launched and is present distributing them randomly, alternatively than virtually creating a caller mentation each 2 hours.

ScriptLeaksR6 besides notes that this benignant of information shuffling has the unintended broadside effect of stopping stat tracking. Ubisoft cryptically noted that its information update "will person an interaction connected immoderate third-party applications" and that it volition "keep an oculus retired for immoderate of your reports connected changed behaviors."

Cheat makers whitethorn yet beryllium capable to automatically observe and relationship for the kinds of obfuscation Ubisoft seems to beryllium utilizing here, meaning this isn't a "silver bullet" method for preventing cheaters successful the agelong term. Still, it's ever absorbing to spot large developers seemingly trying caller strategies successful the never-ending cat-and-mouse battle against cheaters.