Aacguard Anti-Cheat

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AACGUARD
AACGUARD
Anti-cheat layer
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Trust Center

Don't just trust us.
Verify us.

AACGUARD is an anti-cheat scanner you run on your own PC. That's a lot of trust to ask for, so everything here can be checked by you: our published research, independent file scans, the data we keep, and our code.

Read the technical report Verify your download
0 / 69 antivirus detections on VirusTotal DOI openly published technical report No driver user-mode only, no kernel access Public API & worker code on GitHub

Published research

The technical report

We documented exactly how AACGUARD detects cheats, scores evidence and avoids false positives, and published it openly with a permanent DOI.

Technical Report TR-2026-01 · Revision 2 Client v0.0.10 September 2026

AACGUARD: Evidence-Weighted, User-Mode Forensic Cheat Detection for Community Game Servers

Raul-Daniel Pelea · The AACGUARD Project

In short

Community servers can't use the kernel-level anti-cheat that protects official matchmaking. AACGUARD is a user-mode forensic scanner that a player runs on request. It looks for traces of cheat software across 22 evidence sources, weighs every finding, and gives a verdict of CLEAN, SUSPICIOUS or CHEAT DETECTED that server admins review on the web panel.
Read the full report DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22966357
22evidence sources checked
~17sfor a full scan
~190,000individual checks per scan
3stage trust model against false positives
Real case from the report: a clean player's score dropped from 395 to 130 after the trust model, correcting a wrong CHEAT DETECTED to CLEAN.

Read it where you prefer

AACGUARD Research aacguard.com Full report as a web page. Easiest to read on any device. Read online Zenodo (CERN) zenodo.org Permanent archive with DOI and the PDF (821.5 kB). The version of record. Open record & PDF ResearchGate researchgate.net Publication page for researchers to read, follow and discuss. View publication Google Scholar scholar.google.com Indexed in Google Scholar, so it can be found and cited. View on Scholar

Cite this report

Pelea, R.-D. (2026). AACGUARD: Evidence-Weighted, User-Mode Forensic Cheat Detection for Community Game Servers (Technical Report TR-2026-01). The AACGUARD Project. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22966357

In plain words

How a scan works

AACGUARD only runs when you start it. There's no background service and no kernel driver.

  1. 1

    You start it

    A server admin asks for a check and you run the scanner yourself. Nothing runs before or after.

  2. 2

    It looks for cheat traces

    It checks 22 evidence sources, such as program execution history, files, autostart entries, USB history, browser traces of cheat sites, virtual machines and running processes. That's about 190,000 checks in ~17 seconds.

  3. 3

    Evidence is weighed

    Every finding has a weight. A three-stage trust model lowers the score of legitimate software, so normal programs don't get you flagged.

  4. 4

    Humans decide

    You get CLEAN, SUSPICIOUS or CHEAT DETECTED. Server admins see the evidence on the web panel and make the final call.

Privacy

What we keep, and what we don't

We collect only what's needed to show a scan result to the server that asked for it.

What's stored after a scan

  • Your SteamID, so the result is linked to your account
  • A masked IP address, not your full IP
  • The scan log: the findings and the verdict
  • Game config files relevant to the check

What AACGUARD doesn't do

  • No kernel driver: it runs in user mode like any normal app
  • No background running: it closes when the scan is done
  • No always-on monitoring: one scan, only when you start it
  • Nothing else is stored: only the items listed on the left

Full details in our Privacy Notice and Terms.

File safety

Verify your download

Every release is scanned by dozens of antivirus engines. Check that your file is exactly the one we published.

Desktop client

AACGUARD Windows build

Clean
0 / 68 engines flagged it
scanned 2026-07-02

SHA-256

View VirusTotal report

Installer

AACGUARD setup package

Clean
0 / 69 engines flagged it
scanned 2026-07-02

SHA-256

View VirusTotal report

Check it yourself in 3 steps

  1. 1
    Open PowerShell in the folder where you downloaded AACGUARD and run: Use your file's actual name.
  2. 2
    Compare the result with the SHA-256 published above. If it matches, your file is identical to the one we scanned.
  3. 3
    Want a second opinion? Upload the file yourself to VirusTotal or NordVPN File Checker.

Earlier independent check: the v0.0.7 installer was also scanned with NordVPN File Checker on 2026-01-31, result clean.

Open code

See how results are validated

Selected parts of the backend, the API.NET code and the AI worker that validate scan results, are public on GitHub so anyone can review how it works. To be clear about the scope: it's a set of selected, pre-production snippets, not the full platform, and it contains no private infrastructure or secrets.

View on GitHub

Questions

Honest answers

Is AACGUARD a virus or spyware?

No. Every release is scanned by VirusTotal (0 detections on 68–69 engines for the published build and installer), the hashes are public so you can confirm your file, and how the scanner works is documented in our technical report.

Does it run all the time or install a driver?

No. AACGUARD runs in user mode, only when you start a scan, and it stops when the scan is done. It has no kernel driver and no background service.

Why does it look at so many places on my PC?

Cheats leave traces in different places: execution history, files, autostart entries, USB history and more. Checking many sources, and weighing them together, is what makes the result reliable and fair. The full list is in the technical report.

What if I get flagged by mistake?

The three-stage trust model exists exactly to prevent that, and the verdict is always reviewed by a human admin with the evidence in front of them. If you think a result is wrong, contact us and we'll look at it.

Who is behind AACGUARD?

AACGUARD is developed by Raul-Daniel Pelea, the author of the technical report. The report is archived on Zenodo with DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22966357 and indexed on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.

Transparent by design.

Read how it works, check the file, then decide. That's how trust should be earned.

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