Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel. Hopefully anti-cheat will be next
Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel. Hopefully anti-cheat will be next
Microsoft wants to avoid another CrowdStrike incident.
Microsoft has long wanted to get vendors out of the kernel. It's a huge privacy/security/stability risk, and causes major issues like the Crowdstrike outage.
Most of those issues also apply to kernel anti-cheat as well, and it's likely that Microsoft will also attempt to move anti-cheat vendors out of kernel space. The biggest gaming issues with steamOS/Linux are kernel anti-cheat not working, so this could be huge for having full compatibility of multiplayer games on Linux.
I never understood kernel level anti-cheat. People STILL cheat. lol
To be fair, it certainly still makes cheating harder. If it didn't exist, you'd just see even more people cheating, but it's a pretty overkill way of system monitoring for such a relatively small benefit by comparison.
Massive privacy risk, only slightly better performance than other non-kernel monitoring.
Sure, if you are comparing to having no anti-cheat at all... But there are tons of competitive games out there using more "traditional" anti-cheat that don't need kernal access that are doing fine.
Did you never play Fall Guys on PC?
The best anticheat is whitelisting. More coop games, why does it matter if the enemy force is a computer or player? As long as the AI is good enough.
Perhaps*, this is possibly* ok in games with projectile based attacks maybe* but hitscan weapons are not fun to play against when the "player" has no aiming delay.
This is what, the fourth time a Linux community gets excited about this? But that's actually not good for us at all. Much like Android's safety net, or the nightmare that is the Mac equivalent, the entire point will be creating an untouchable chain from the firmware to the final OS being booted, and only allowing some apps to use a specific API to attest this isn't compromised.
This is horrendous for people trying to modify the OS or, in a more relevant tone, run programs meant for that OS on an entirely different environment. Microsoft has slowly been moving towards making this work on PCs, mostly due to pressure from DRM providers like Netflix or banking apps, but unlike Apple they can't simply lock everything down at once and say "deal with it" because Windows lives by backwards compatibility. Either way, this is just another step towards this upcoming future.
If your favorite games now start asking Windows if the chain of trust is not tampered with... say goodbye to compatibility with Proton.
And if Windows makes using their system super easy, there will likely be even more games with kernel level anti cheat. Classic embrace, extend, extinguish.
I don't think chain of trust and security through kernel-level access are fighting the same problem.
Usually chain of trust is to prevent app tampering, and kernel-level access is to prevent memory tampering.
I assume Windows is creating a new API for applications to monitor certain regions of memory for tampering without needing kernel access.
There already is a API for this with ebpf for Windows and it is the same API that can be used on Linux (because it originates from Linux).
https://microsoft.github.io/ebpf-for-windows/
EBPF still runs in Kernel space but in a much more limited and confined way.
Kernel level access is to stop access plain and simple. That includes user access rights absolutely.
I'm not sure this will be an issue.
When a piece of software is checking for chain of trust, it's done primarily for security or DRM reasons. The benefits of verifying this chain of trust would make it a little harder for cheaters to inject code and it would be an extra hurdle for pirates to overcome, but the cost is that everyone that bought your game with the intent of playing it on Linux now has absolutely no way to make that happen. I'm not sure the loss in ~4% of your sales would be worth the benefit.
For those who can't see the writing on the wall.
Privileged access will include admin access and eventually the ability to make changes to Windows is coming to an end.
The distribution will be enshitified from the install to the updates and you wont be able to do a thing. Exactly like android, ios ect.
Microsoft are doing the opposite of what customers want. The ONLY way this changes is with real competition. If you are only familiar with Microsoft as a professional. It's no time like the present to step outside the rent seekers and see what the rest of the industry is doing.
it's likely that Microsoft will also attempt to move anti-cheat vendors out of kernel space
[Citation needed]
It seems like the point is that Microsoft would be developing some sort of alternative to the kernel with similar functionality for antivirus providers, that doesn't need to have kernel level access. Anticheat uses a lot of the same techniques as kernel level antivirus to detect malware, thus it would probably have to adapt to this new system.
I think the article is more commenting on how Microsoft is directly partnering with antivirus companies for this new system right now, while they're not directly partnering with anticheat companies, even though they'd probably have to migrate to this new system regardless.
Another nail in the coffin
I get this and when I used windows I've had issues with kernel level anti-viruses, but why anti-viruses before anti-cheats? Surely an AV's kernel access is more important then an AC's access?
Microsoft's biggest concern here is another Crowd Strike like event, so they're prioritizing kernel modifications that impact businesses.
You realize this'll occur at the expense of Microsoft treating the user as an untrustworthy enemy.
This means modding (even for offline play) will not be allowed. Heck, even modify ini files might be viewed as "hacking".
I agree removing the need for anti-cheat in principal sounds nice, but this means archiving games or porting them to "unsupported platforms" will be relics of the past.
I believe that's just fear-mongering. This has been a thing that Microsoft has wanted to do for a while, largely because having 3rd party code with direct kernel access is a huge problem in terms of stability and security unless you can be sure you know what all that code is doing.
They tried to do this in the past, arguing that anything that wanted kernel-level access had to Windows API calls instead, however Windows Defender which was bundled with the OS was exempt from this restriction. The EU argued that it gave Microsoft a competitive advantage in the AV space and mandated that if they wanted to do this, they had to follow their own rules which MS was not willing to do.
Instead, Microsoft dictated that any code that was going to run in the kernel had to be submitted to Microsoft for review, who would then approve or deny the code for use. The problem with this method is that it's slow, so any AV that wanted to update their engine had to go through a code review process every time. Crowdstrike (and likely every other AV provider) got around this by having a component of their software with kernel-access that could read in data dynamically. This is what caused that worldwide BSOD problem a couple years back. The Crowdstrike component with kernel access loaded in a bad update that was not properly reviewed and it broke every system with the AV installed.
Overall, this change is a good thing and will force software vendors to actually operate securely rather than just asking for ring 0 access when they don't need it. As always, if you're worried about the changes MS is making, Linux is available and getting better day by day.
I hope that it's fear-mongering.
I tried to justify the technical reasons here, but the tl;dr is it possible for windows 11 to verify that the OS and hardware are "unmodified" (aka "attestation").
They tried to do this in the past, arguing that anything that wanted kernel-level access had to Windows API calls instead, however Windows Defender which was bundled with the OS was exempt from this restriction.
True but attestation is a different beast. It's just a hardware check that "everything is unmodified". Any/all software vendors can use it. Windows Defender was a "duplication" of functionality (hence the EU smackdown).
However, as Microsoft has already integrated attention into Windows 11 (restricted to verifying security patches, for the moment) - it'll be easier for them to repackage attestation into a simple API that software vendors (games/apps/even websites) and use (
if attestation.check('basic') == true; then run; else exit).This "simple" check is what software companies have been wanting for years: a way to guarantee that users are running their software in the way that the software companies want you to be running it (meaning unmodified).
The OPs original question was about removing anti-cheat - which I'm confident will happen and will be replaced with attention (as it already exists for android, John deere, iphones, etc).
Your points about virus scanners is different: I think virus scanners, although technically not necessary (after attestation is mandatory) - they will still exist, simply because virus scanners is a 40+ Billion Dollar industry. Microsoft cannot/will not piss of those companies "just because they can" - it would be in the shareholders best interests for Microsoft to throw the virus scanner companies a bone, allow them an isolated space to do their thing, charge them for the privilege, and require that Microsoft verifies that the virus scanner is untampered.
I don't think it would go that far, I don't think they can go that far? Stopping people from editing text files basically is what you are saying?
You realize this’ll occur at the expense of Microsoft treating the user as an untrustworthy enemy.
What do you mean? Take away your ability to create drivers? Because it's already extremely limited and you need to get signed. I guess this "change" would just mean not signing any new antivirus drivers.
This means modding (even for offline play) will not be allowed. Heck, even modify ini files might be viewed as “hacking”.
That's a completely wrong take. Whether or not an anticheat runs in the kernel or not does not mean people can just go and edit their files. Even with a kernel level anticheat people can already do that if the driver is not running. The correct way is to do purity checks during connection to an online server, and only allow serverside code to update the gamestate. Any texture file hacks and local purity bypasses for those would need to be caught by the userland anticheat, like it has been done for ages. Not the best solution, but far more privacy friendly.
I agree removing the need for anti-cheat in principal sounds nice, but this means archiving games or porting them to “unsupported platforms” will be relics of the past.
Another weird take. Are you talking about the anticheat not being installable anymore? Because even if a game comes with a kernel level anticheat it would need a valid certificate, so any dead game would eventually have this problem regardless of it being allowed to install the driver. Porting games would in almost all cases get rid of the anticheat or somehow null it, disable any custom servers from forcing a valid anticheat, stuff like that. And archiving would be much easier without any anticheat at all, again regardless of kernel anticheat or userland anticheat.
MUCH better solutions against hacker are to use all this amazing machine learning stuff on the server side, put more power back into the hands of admins and their selfhosted servers, and handle reports about hackers better and faster.
Thanks for the well thought response, you made quite a few points, but let me try to clarify where I'm coming from:
Windows 11 requires all computers to have TPM 2.0. It's a crypto chip used for allowing vendors (re: Microsoft) to add secure keys at a hardware level, which will then allow software to verify that the software, operating system, and hardware are "unmodified".
In a nutshell this process for allowing software to ensure that the OS and hardware are not compromised nor modified is called "attestation".
And it's something Google has (successfully) introduced into Android and they're now "turning the screws" .
This means that the Windows of the near future, will begin to "limit access" to the OS (ie: kick people out of the kernel), only allowed signed device drivers, etc.
The next step will be restricting "sideloaded apps" and funnel people through the "officially supported apps store". Once that happens, sideloading will either be removed or crippled.
When it comes to gaming: there won't be any need for anti-cheat measures, because Microsoft will know (and will disable itself or the app) if you've modified the OS or any app/game (this could include installing a game on a newer or older version of Windows)
This is the future of computing. It's already happening to cellphones. I'd read a great article (that I, sadly, cannot find) that talks about how technology like attestation have software vendors treat the user as an untrustworthy person. The upshot, for the user, is that if they get infected will malware or a virus the OS will know and will react accordingly. The downside, for the user, is that the freedom we have today - to install or configure our OS to our liking will be a thing of the past.
These changes won't happen overnight, but it has and will be a slow boil.
Oh, so that's why Epic's Easy anticheat keeps having trouble. Microsoft might be using it as a trial run.
I'm curious to see how CompTIA responds to this. They already don't allow you to take their exams in a VM or any kind of Linux. Presumably for the same "concerns" that the anti-cheat industry has.
A useless certificate for a useless job.
As a holder of multiple CompTIA certificates I wholeheartedly agree that they're useless. Unfortunately they're by far the most common means of contractors (the actual people, not the companies) checking off the boxes to qualify for U.S. government IT contracts; which means they're still relevant.