Huh, I thought I already made a post about this, but I must’ve deleted it due to career impacting fears. Anyway, I started cheating/hacking in video games back in 2011 and that’s how I got in to reverse engineer + programming + security. I started a console skid and then moved to PC gaming and cheating which is a lot easier. I used to hang out with a lot of “blackhat” type folks like Teh1337 aka Carter Feldman, XeEaton, Lizard Squad skids, Everydaynine etc. One funny ancedote is Chrome x Modz being sued by Take Two aka the GTA devs. Actually, I interviewed for a job for Rockstar/Take Two a couple of years, and asked my interviewer if the rumor was true that they wanted to go with Battleye, but they wanted too much money and my interviewer got quite irked lol.
PC Anti-cheats: Tier 1, Battleye, EAC, ESEA Tier 5, VAC
I cheated in Dayz Mod back in 2012 and was there when Bastian first implemented the kernal driver anti-cheat which people freak out about now even though 95% of anti-virus and anti-cheat software are kernal mode now. There was funny blunders by Battleye such as not having CRC checks after loading in game, so you could just stop the Battleye service and use Cheat Engine lol. Also the Manual Map DDL Injector/Side Loading stemmed from Battleye’s update and you could just modify strings/icons that Battleye checked for like “BlackBone” etc and resign the driver to bypass Battleye. Also, a method existed where you could just replace a DLL in the games folder to load your cheats because VAC + Battleye didn’t do hash checks for game files lol. Battleye actually got pwned by some kids and they only got caught because they charge $2 for Battleye unbans on MPGH. Oh, and who could forget manually banning people as well as banning people who just visited cheating websites and people tricking people to go there to get them banned.
Battleye also started the trend where they did KGB/CIA level stuff like inflitrating private cheats and cheating communities by paying, getting people to use their ID for verification and even putting exploits in their own games to provide bona fides lol, and even offering jobs to cheaters to get them to snitch. In case you think that I’m lying, then watch Eugen Harton’s GDC talk. Many anti-cheats followed Battleye’s initivates such as EAC etc. and they’ve done a good job at reducing cheats.