CSGO: Fnatic’s KRIMZ gets VAC Banned

Fnatic CSGO player and two-time Major champion, Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson, has revealed that his Steam account has been banned by VAC. The reason for the VAC ban is still not clear.

Given the competitive record in CSGO as well as the anti-cheat measures adopted by most tournament organizations, it is difficult to accuse KRIMZ of using aimbot in recent tournaments. Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) used to be one of the most trusted methods used by game developers to fight hacking. Even though the VAC system is complained of still letting some hackers out, but when an account is banned by VAC, we are sure that VAC has detected this account as cheating.

KRIMZ got VAC Banned before FLASHPOINT 2’s DIGNITAS match

Does KRIMZ cheat? Most likely not. With hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, professional players certainly do not take risks to hack. This time, the community may remain suspicious of KRIMZ until Valve officially responds to this decision. The VAC order for KRIMZ accounts came after multiple accounts in China were recognized by the system for using third-party software. Valve has reassured that the accounts of the group of players will be removed after they delete the third software.

It seems that my account got vac banned. @CSGO can you fix this asap pls

— Freddy Johansson (@Krimz) November 28, 2020

KRIMZ’s Fnatic coach, Andreas Samuelsson, defended the player on Twitter about the VAC ban. He said the team is working with FLASHPOINT to ensure KRIMZ can compete against DIGNITAS on December 1. In theory, CSPPA (the professional CSGO association) is the perfect way for KRIMZ to interact with Valve, but Currently, this association has not yet acknowledged this case publicly.

About Krimz VAC banned account. pic.twitter.com/ztEwun6Q0q

— Andreas Samuelsson (@SamuelssonCSGO) November 28, 2020

What’s the difference between Overwatch and VAC boards?

VAC bans automatically and lasts forever. According to CSGO development team John McDonald, when the ban system is like that, almost 100% of VAC has detected that the player has done something wrong. No one other than Valve knows what software activates the VAC ban, but sometimes harmless software can be accidentally misinterpreted and banned by the system.

There are many players still confused between VAC ban and Overwatch board. CSGO’s Overwatch system was launched in 2018. It used players who met the playtime and rank level requirements set by Valve to review the demos of the suspected players. At the end of the demo, you will vote on whether the person is in violation or not. Once the demo has been reviewed by multiple people, Valve will be the one to decide the Overwatch ban. Overwatch bans are not as severe as VAC bans and only last for a fixed time.

However, since Trusted Mode was introduced in CSGO to combat hacking, more and more gamers have been banned by VAC but have since been removed by the publisher.

How many people actually hack in CSGO?

The statistics don’t say much. With CSGO reaching almost a million players daily, about 10 to 20 thousand of them will be banned by VAC at a time. Since CSGO is a free game, these people will create more accounts to continue hacking. That means about 2% of CSGO players will be banned by VAC. Valve’s automated system in December 2018 VAC banned over 100,000 accounts – one of the largest bans in Valve history.

But that number is nothing compared to August 2020, with more than 300,000 accounts banned in one day, then 300,000 more accounts the next day. CSGO’s Trusted Mode is considered the main culprit. It causes software like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) to be also activated. When this streaming software was confirmed, many players were VAC removed. But the most terrible number is the number of Valve accounts that have been banned, exceeding 44 million accounts, violations of all degrees on Steam. In total, nearly 30 million of them come from VAC.

How to know if a player has been banned by VAC?

Luckily there’s an easy way to check if someone has been banned from VAC like Krimz. This is a tutorial to check if your opponent has been banned by VAC. This feature is integrated in well-known CSOG tools such as CSGO Demo Manager. CSGODM allows users to add suspected players to a “watch list”. The system’s bot will check regularly to see if this noticed player has been banned.

Luckily for KRIMZ, his VAC ban will be cancelled. There’s been a lot going on in the professional CSGO world this week. In addition to KRIMZ’s VAC ban, Triump’s Paytyn “Junior” Johnson’s account was also stolen, causing his $20,000 worth of skins to evaporate. Let’s wait and see how Valve responds to the case of KRIMZ!

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