How one Counter-Strike player tricked over 3000 cheaters into getting banned

Players have been using hacks to cheat at first-person shooters for years. Now, the tables have turned.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player AndroidL tricked over 3000 cheaters into getting banned by releasing ingenious fake hacks.

AndroidL created free to download hacks that advertised a variety of services, including an aimbot, bunnyhop and wallhacks for use in Valve's hugely popular competitive first-person shooter.

But unknown to those downloading the hack, AndroidL slipped in features that would ensure a Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) ban. The hacks edit the player's view angles to those that should be impossible. Here's one example:

The hacks also constantly give the player infinite ammo and health.

"The infinite health/ammo was just another way to ensure the user gets banned," AndroidL explained in a post on the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive subReddit.

"Things like health/ammo are all server side, so editing them client side won't actually do anything, but it will let VAC know you're trying to change them and they will ban you for this."

Over the course of two weeks AndroidL released three hacks. The first two worked on a timer that triggered the features VAC would spot only after a certain time, such as 10pm the day after release.

The third hack, however, triggered a VAC ban as soon as users opened it and joined a game.

AndroidL's third hack was downloaded over 3500 times, making it the number one hack on one of the most popular video game hack forums. In total, AndroidL's fake hacks were downloaded over 5500 times.

Some of the responses from players who were banned are just precious:

The CS:GO subReddit is unanimous in its praise of AndroidL's work, and has called on him to repeat his exploits. Perhaps Valve should give him a job!