PunkBuster


PunkBuster is a computer program that is designed to detect software used for cheating in online games. It does this by scanning the memory contents of the local machine. A computer identified as using cheats may be banned from connecting to protected servers. The aim of the program is to isolate cheaters and prevent them from disrupting legitimate games. PunkBuster is developed and published by Even Balance, Inc.

History

Tony Ray founded Even Balance to develop PunkBuster after his experience with cheaters on Team Fortress Classic.
The first beta of PunkBuster was announced on September 21, 2000 for Half-Life. Valve was at the time fighting a hard battle against cheating, which had been going on since the release of the game. The first game in which PunkBuster was integrated was id Software's Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Features

Published features

Some games do not have a 64-bit version of PunkBuster. For this reason, 64 bit clients will not be able to play in PunkBuster enabled servers unless they run the 32-bit client of the game.
PunkBuster does not allow Windows users without administrative accounts to connect to any games. Upon connecting to a game, the user will be immediately kicked for having insufficient OS privileges. Starting with PB client v1.700, a Windows service with full administrative rights is used in complement with the ingame PunkBuster client, allowing updates without user rights elevation. However, some games might still require administrative rights before PunkBuster will function correctly.

Enforcement

Global GUID bans and Hardware bans

PunkBuster uses a system called 'global banning'. Either the GUID or parts of the computer's hardware are banned from PunkBuster-enabled servers. Most attempts at cheating will only receive a detection warning, but cheats that interfere with PunkBuster's software itself could lock out the GUID of the offending system and disable access to all PunkBuster enabled servers for that particular game. Particularly severe instances of cheating may lock the offending computer out of all PunkBuster-protected games.
As of June 30, 2004, Even Balance has used unique hardware identifiers to permanently ban players who attempt to interfere with PunkBuster's normal operation. Even Balance uses a 128-bit private one-way hash so that no serial number information for individual computers can be obtained from a hardware GUID.
As with previous PunkBuster GUID bans, hardware GUID lockouts are permanent. Even Balance has not disclosed what hardware PunkBuster looks for when issuing a ban, but close examination of the software has indicated that the GUID may be based on the serial numbers of scanned hard-drives. As with many bans based off information from the user's system, hardware GUID bans can be spoofed.

False Positives

During the period of October 30 to November 6, 2013 Punkbuster was falsely banning Battlefield 4 users with the error "" As of November 8, 2013 the issue has been resolved by Evenbalance inc. and all Punkbuster bans resulting from this error have been resolved and officially deemed a false-positive.

Attacks on PunkBuster

PunkBuster usually searches for known cheat program signatures as opposed to relying on a heuristic approach. On March 23, 2008, hackers published and implemented a proof of concept exploit of PunkBuster's indiscriminate memory scanning. Because PunkBuster scans all of a machine's virtual memory, malicious users were able to cause mass false positives by transmitting text fragments from known cheat programs onto a high population IRC channel. When PunkBuster detected the text within user's IRC client text buffers, the users were banned. On March 25, 2008, Even Balance confirmed the existence of this exploit.

Games using PunkBuster