Valorant hardware bans linked to secondhand AMD CPUs

A Valorant player reported being banned from the game after purchasing a secondhand AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. The ban appears to be linked to the previous owner’s history of cheating, as Riot Games’ anti-cheat software, Vanguard, utilizes the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to issue unique hardware identifiers. Because AMD integrates the TPM directly into the CPU silicon, the cryptographic identity travels with the processor, potentially carrying previous bans to new owners.

Phillip Koskinas, Riot’s anti-cheat director, expressed skepticism regarding the specific claim, stating he could not find a matching support ticket and noting that hardware bans typically last a maximum of four months. Koskinas also denied that Vanguard blacklists a user’s entire PC, including motherboards and storage, based on a single component. However, the incident highlights a potential issue for consumers of used hardware, as there is currently no way to verify if a processor carries a persistent hardware fingerprint from a prior ban.