Riot anticheat boss disputes claim that secondhand CPU carried a Valorant ban
Phillip Koskinas said he couldn't find a matching support ticket and called the story 'pretty unlikely', noting hardware bans last four months at most.
Riot Games' head of anticheat, Phillip Koskinas, has publicly disputed a Valorant player's claim that a secondhand CPU carried the previous owner's hardware ban. According to pcgamer.com, the player said on Reddit that they bought the CPU on September 21 and that the original owner's ban was logged on August 12.
The user also said Riot support told them the ban is now associated with all of their other PC components and cannot be lifted. Koskinas responded that he could not find a support ticket matching the user's details and called the story 'pretty unlikely.'
He added that Riot's hardware bans last a maximum of four months and denied that a system's other hardware gets blacklisted when it is detected alongside a banned component.
Ongoing debate over kernel-level anticheat
The dispute comes amid wider discussion of extreme surveillance measures, including kernel-level anticheat, that esports developers have adopted in recent years to combat cheating. That background—dating back to before this exchange—remains a point of contention between publishers and parts of the player base.
Quick answers
What did Riot's anticheat boss say about the secondhand CPU story?
Phillip Koskinas said he couldn't find a support ticket matching the user's details and called the story 'pretty unlikely.'
How long do Valorant hardware bans last?
Koskinas said Riot hardware bans last a maximum of four months.
Did Riot blacklist the other PC components?
Koskinas denied that a system's other hardware gets blacklisted when detected alongside a banned component.