The one thing that you don’t want on your Steam account with your hard-earned collection of CS2 skins is a VAC ban. But if you’ve only clocked in a couple of hours in CS2, you probably don’t even know what a VAC ban is. To help you get a better understanding, here’s a complete explanation of what is a VAC ban in CS2.
The VAC System and VAC Ban Explained
To understand VAC bans, we must first understand the term VAC. VAC is short for Valve Anti-Cheat, an automated cheat detection system developed by Valve. Its main purpose is to detect cheating software that users might have installed on their computers and then prevent those users from connecting to VAC-Secured servers.
So, a VAC ban means that the Valve Anti-Cheat system has detected cheating software on a user’s computer and banned that user from connecting to VAC-Secured servers. Since players connect to a VAC-Secured server whenever they play an online match in CS2, be it Competitive, Deathmatch, Casual, Premier, or Wingman, getting VAC banned essentially means that the player can not play CS2 anymore. For more information on what else happens when you get VAC banned, check out the official Steam support page on the topic.
VAC Detection Criteria
The VAC system determines whether a computer has cheats installed by looking for cheat signatures that cheating software leaves behind. Not only that, but VAC also looks for third-party modifications to the game’s core executable files and dynamic link libraries since altering the game this way to gain an advantage over other players is also classified as a cheat or hack.
However, as for how the VAC system exactly works, we can’t provide an accurate explanation of that. That’s because Valve hasn’t revealed anything about that. And unfortunately, we don’t think that information like that will be released soon. That’s because if Valve does that, hackers could use that information to bypass the VAC system entirely.
Conclusion
If you get VAC banned, then you are now permanently banned from participating in any of the game modes offered within CS2. So, if you don’t want that to happen to your Steam account, you should never try installing any kind of cheat software or attempt to gain an unfair advantage over your opponents.