Purchasing second-hand processors carries the risk of inheriting hardware identification bans from anti-cheat systems. Users may find their accounts restricted if the previous owner of the CPU was flagged for cheating in specific games.
Riot Games anti-cheat specialist Phillip Koskinas confirmed that their hardware bans are game-specific and last for a maximum of four months. The company does not blacklist entire systems based on a single component match, and support teams can inform users about the remaining duration of a ban.
Different developers employ varying enforcement policies. Easy Anti-Cheat applies bans across all titles using its software, while BattleEye enforces permanent global restrictions. Other systems, such as Ricochet for Call of Duty, require server-side verification to ensure system integrity.
Anti-cheat measures remain a subject of debate due to concerns over system resource usage and privacy. While some updates have targeted specialized cheating hardware, these tools are increasingly viewed as necessary to maintain the playability of online gaming environments.
