Fides: remote anomaly-based cheat detection using client emulation

  • Authors:
  • Edward Kaiser;Wu-chang Feng;Travis Schluessler

  • Affiliations:
  • Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA;Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA;Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 16th ACM conference on Computer and communications security
  • Year:
  • 2009

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

As a result of physically owning the client machine, cheaters in online games currently have the upper-hand when it comes to avoiding detection. To address this problem and turn the table on cheaters, this paper presents Fides, an anomaly-based cheat detection approach that remotely validates game execution. With Fides, a server-side Controller specifies how and when a client-side Auditor measures the game. To accurately validate measurements, the Controller partially emulates the client and collaborates with the server. This paper examines a range of cheat methods and initial measurements that counter them, showing that a Fides prototype is able to efficiently detect several existing cheats, including one state-of-the-art cheat that is advertised as "undetectable".