Secure Boot Valorant < LEGIT • 2025 >

The integration of Secure Boot into Valorant’s ecosystem is part of Riot Games’ aggressive stance against cheating. By leveraging hardware-level security, Riot’s proprietary anti-cheat system, Vanguard, can ensure that the operating system has not been compromised by low-level malware or "kernel-level" cheats before the game even launches. Why Valorant Requires Secure Boot

With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft made Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 and Secure Boot mandatory requirements for the OS. Riot Games followed suit by requiring these features to be active for Valorant to run on Windows 11. This creates a "Chain of Trust":

By enforcing Secure Boot, Vanguard ensures that the operating system bootloader has not been tampered with. If a bootkit attempts to inject code during the boot process, the UEFI firmware will detect the invalid signature and halt the boot process or refuse to load the compromised driver. secure boot valorant

Here’s how it works step-by-step:

Riot Games made a calculated trade-off: By mandating Secure Boot, they have raised the bar for cheat developers to an extraordinary height. No longer can a cheater simply download a user-mode hack or a kernel driver; they must now defeat the foundational cryptography of modern PC booting. The integration of Secure Boot into Valorant’s ecosystem

—specifically for Windows 11 users—represents a pivotal shift toward hardware-anchored security. This requirement ensures that the operating system's kernel is untampered, creating a "trusted" environment for the game's anti-cheat system, Vanguard, to operate. The Technical Mandate: Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 Secure Boot is a standard within the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) designed to prevent unauthorized code, such as rootkits or bootkits, from executing during the system's startup. For Valorant , this feature serves as the first line of defense against high-level cheats that attempt to bypass anti-cheat detection by loading before the operating system. Alongside Secure Boot,

🛡️ By enforcing Secure Boot, Riot Games significantly raises the bar for cheat developers, ensuring that Valorant remains one of the most competitive and fair tactical shooters on the market. While the technical setup can be a hurdle, it is a one-time configuration that secures both your game and your entire PC. To help you get past any specific errors or BIOS hurdles: (e.g., MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte) Specific error code (e.g., VAN9001, VAN9003) Current BIOS mode (Legacy vs. UEFI) Riot Games followed suit by requiring these features

Vanguard’s kernel driver is powerful, but it has a fatal vulnerability: . This means that a sufficiently sophisticated cheat—specifically, a bootkit —could load before Vanguard, gain control of the system, and then trick Vanguard into seeing a sanitized, fake version of the system state. The cheat could hide its own memory, fake its process list, and intercept Vanguard’s queries. In this scenario, Vanguard becomes blind.

If you attempt to launch Valorant on Windows 11 without these enabled, you will likely encounter the or VAN9003 error codes, which explicitly state that Secure Boot is required. How to Check Your Secure Boot Status

For the vast majority of players, enabling Secure Boot is a one-time BIOS setting that fades into the background. For the privacy-conscious enthusiast or the Linux dual-booter, it is a frustrating wall. But in the context of Valorant’s million-dollar tournaments and millions of daily players, the decision is clear: a fortress is not built to be convenient for visitors; it is built to keep enemies out. Secure Boot is the moat, and Vanguard is the watchtower. Together, they make Valorant one of the most cheat-resistant shooters ever created.