Photo by Sean Do on Unsplash

Meet The Man Behind Guided Hacking

Guided Hacking is the hub for learning video game hacking and more.

Could you tell us a bit about yourself? What piqued your interest in game hacking?

Yes, my name is Rake and I am the owner of https://GuidedHacking.com, Guided Hacking is the best place to learn game hacking, we have 300+ video tutorials, 500+ text tutorials, and thousands of source codes to get you started. We even published a real book earlier this year. We mainly cover game hacking but we also have plenty of reverse engineering, ethical hacking & other infosec content.

I’ve always loved computers, I did a bit of programming and web development in the early 2000s but I didn’t really get into game hacking until 2014. Like most game hackers, I got my start when I heard someone say the word “aimbot” in an in-game chat system and immediately wanted to download one myself. I had a bit of programming experience so I figured I could make one myself but quickly found my love for reverse engineering was much stronger than my love for development. Like most hackers, it’s the challenge that drives me and the fun of learning something new. I started game hacking in 2014, after following some tutorials on Guided Hacking and I saw huge potential for this website, so I bought the site in 2015 and have been growing it ever since.

Could you explain a bit about the difference between hacking and cracking?

For me, growing up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, cracking was bypassing licensing or authentication, typically in a local executable file. Hacking is the art of taking something apart, finding out how it works & then using this knowledge to your advantage. Hacking is really a state of mind, it’s a challenge and reward system in which you challenge yourself in your never-ending pursuit of knowledge.

How do you acquire games, avoid being banned and avoid having to buy the game again? Doesn’t it get expensive?

Most of the popular games can get pretty expensive, but there are also thousands of Free To Play games, so you’re not really limited by how much money you have. If you download free public cheats, there is a definite possibility that you will get banned, but if you develop your own cheats it greatly reduces the risk.

Personally, I don’t play many games and I don’t hack many multiplayer games, I am very focused on writing tutorials and growing GH. Games with kernel anti-cheat have a very high ban rate, but without kernel anti-cheat, it’s very unlikely you will get banned unless you’re ‘rage hacking’. Raging is when you just slaughter everyone on the server as fast as possible, which is a great way to get banned because it’s obvious you’re cheating. My goal is to give myself a competitive advantage, not to ruin the game for other players.

How does console game hacking differ from PC?

The biggest difference is, on a PC you have full control over the operating system, running processes and specifically the game’s memory. On console, you need to enable modding with some sort of JTAG type kit or jailbreak in order to get administrative access and run your own code. Once you can execute your own code, it’s a very similar process. You use a disassembler and other tools to reverse engineer the game, finding specific variables & functions you want to modify to enable different types of cheats.

In the past Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 used the PowerPC CPUs & instruction sets but the newest consoles have switched to the regular x86/x64 we are used to on PC, so they are more comparable now than in the past. The process is still essentially the same, you inject your code, hook functions & change variables which enables you to do pretty much anything.

What about web browser-based and mobile hacking? What challenges can they offer?

Hacking PC games typically requires C/C++ and assembly experience. Cheating in web browser games requires a whole different set of skills. In the past, most were Flash games so you had specific tools and processes to hack them, but now most games are referred to as HTML5 games, utilizing Javascript & WebGL so you need to be well versed with those languages. Many of the best browser games are made with the Unity Engine and compiled to WebAssembly so you have another layer of complexity there as well. If the game is primarily Javascript, you can create JS user scripts to modify them, similar to a browser extension. WebAssembly is probably the most annoying to deal with of the web technologies, but still modifiable.

We have many web browser based tutorials: https://guidedhacking.com/threads/web-browser-game-hacking-intro-part-1.17726/

Browser games are sometimes easily exploited using packets, you can capture and replay packets, for example, you could send the attack packet 300 times and quickly defeat your enemies. Fiddler, Burpsuite & Wireshark are good tools to use in this situation.

Android game hacking has become very popular, while you can do some basic stuff on a rooted phone with various tools most of the Android hacking occurs in Bluestacks and other emulators on a PC. Most Android games use Unity so you follow a very similar pattern as to when you’re hacking Unity games on PC. We have many Android tutorials here: https://guidedhacking.com/forums/android-game-hacking.438/

Should a person first need to know how to write a game in order to hack it?

Understanding object-oriented programming & specifically 3D game programming are extremely important skills if you plan to do game hacking long term. But no, if you just want to make some basic hacks for a game, you only need to learn how to use 1 tool: Cheat Engine. This tool gives you everything you need to modify variables, hook functions & much much more. It is the most important tool in Windows game hacking, it’s very easy to use and there are thousands of tutorials that can help you learn it.

The most important skill in-game hacking is reverse engineering, you can often find code snippets and information online regarding the coding aspect but you are ultimately responsible for the success of your game hacking career, and reverse engineering is a skill you can’t copy and paste.

We know it’s a typical cat and mouse game, but what is the current state of anti-cheat software? How can they improve?

All the most popular games are being shipped with kernel anti-cheat now, EAC, Battleye & Xigncode being the 3 most popular. EAC is very difficult to bypass long-term, Battleye is a bit easier and Xigncode is hit or miss, depending on what version the game uses. Games that do not have kernel anti-cheat are begging to be hacked, it’s just too easy nowadays with sites like GH which teach you everything you need to know to make cheats. The first thing a kernel anti-cheat does is block your access to the game process’s memory, so you can’t attach a tool like Cheat Engine to it. This immediately stops 99% of cheaters, so as a baseline defence it’s very effective. To bypass this first defence, you typically have to write your own driver, which your average person is not capable of doing.

If game studios want to make a discernable impact on hacking, they must use kernel anti-cheat, at the bare minimum use ObRegisterCallbacks to prevent access to the process.

Most people do not trust software that requires kernel-level access. What are your thoughts?

Kernel anti-cheats are essentially rootkits and they are very invasive. But, if you want a fair gaming experience, you must accept them. It is the only thing that has a real impact on cheating. They do send a lot of information about running processes to their servers, they will even upload copies of “risky” files to their servers for manual analysis. If you’re outraged by this, you must understand that Windows Defender and all other antiviruses also do this. If you have corporate EDR, you better believe they are doing the same thing. If you allow this because you don’t want viruses, then it’s equally acceptable to allow anti-cheat to do the same thing because you don’t want cheaters. I also don’t think most people realize how many third-party drivers are running on their system 24/7, use a tool such as ProcessHacker to see all the drivers that are running. Even the simplest programs will use drivers.

The Secret Club has the best article on this topic here: https://secret.club/2020/04/17/kernel-anticheats.html

Game hacking is a bit risky, it does have legal consequences. How does that affect you?

Manipulating client game processes on your own computer, like what is done to make cheats is not a criminal activity, you cannot get hit with Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges but you are violating the Terms of Service and EULAs, which are civil matters. In most cases, if a company cannot prove you did financial damage to their company, then you won’t find yourself in trouble. For example, if the game has in-game purchases, your cheat could diminish the number of purchases that are made, and it could be argued you caused the damages. The last method they can use to get you is copyright infringement. For example, you might use a copyrighted picture on your website or in your cheat. Also consider, if the game has a specific function you need to replicate, which you cannot re-create, manually, you might copy and paste the assembly instructions into your cheat. This is copyright infringement. You should also avoid touching DRM at all costs. Bypassing DRM is a crime, we have not seen anti-cheat classified as DRM, but if a lawsuit ever does classify anti-cheat as DRM that would set a very dangerous precedent.

If you’re just making hacks for fun, it is extremely unlikely you would have any legal problems. The problems typically begin when you are selling cheats and making more than, I don’t know ~20,000$. These are the people game companies go after, not you average person making a cheat for personal use.

For the record, I don’t condone doing anything illegal. Game hacking is a fun hobby and I have a good life, I see no reason to jeopardize that, if the risk is larger than the reward I avoid it. There are thousands of games you can hack for fun, with ZERO possibility of legal action, to this is just a hobby, I don’t even hack new games for the most part. I rarely even use the hacks I make, typically when I’m done developing them, that’s it I’m done and I move on. I don’t even play multiplayer games.

Is there a legal career for game hack enthusiasts?

Absolutely! I talk to a lot of ethical hackers and malware analysts and I’ve heard countless times that they got started with game hacking. So many people get introduced to coding & reverse engineering because of game hacking. Most people get involved when they are 14–16 years old and they end up going to college for IT because they discover they really enjoy it. Reverse engineering specifically is a highly specialized skill that is probably 70% of game hacking, people who excel at RE are a perfect fit for a career in malware analysis. GH has opened a number of opportunities for me, I get a few job offers every year and I have no college degree or real work experience. I am confident that I could get any reverse engineering job I wanted, just using Guided Hacking as my resume. I tell people all the time, you do not need college, start a blog, a Youtube channel or a Github and share everything you learn, companies want to see real-world experience, especially in information security.

And who do you think get hired to work at anti-cheat companies? You can’t protect games if you don’t know how to hack them, the best anti-cheat devs are game hackers. In fact, if you analyze Riot’s Vanguard anti-cheat, you will find a link to their career/hiring page embedded in the binary.

What are your thoughts on Cheat engines and other tools, versus coding your own cheat from scratch? Are Cheat Engine users script kiddies?

Cheat Engine is by far the most important game hacking tool, and no I wouldn’t consider them script kiddies. It’s a tool just like any other, you still need to be able to read assembly and write code in order to make advanced hacks using it. Your average person can easily make simple cheats like changing health and ammo, but to make full-featured trainers, you must have skills and experience, even with a tool like Cheat Engine. But if you want to make aimbots, wallhacks, ESP & other advanced hacks, you will want to learn a programming language and develop your own frameworks. When I’m reversing a game my time is spent: 50% in Cheat Engine, 25% in IDA Pro, 25% in ReClass.NET, so you can see how important Cheat Engine is. Re-creating Cheat Engine would take years, it’s an incredibly versatile program, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Will having a powerful computer and multiple monitors make you a better game hacker? If so, what would be the most important upgrade for a user?

Having a fast computer will absolutely make the process faster. For example, scanning for pointers in Cheat Engine can take 30 seconds on a fast computer or 5 minutes on a slow computer. As long as your computer was built in the past 5 years, you’re fine. If you have an older slower computer, maybe stick to older games. Things do get kind of crazy with the newer games. New games might have a 300MB executable file, which makes analysis take a very long time. Sometimes IDA Pro will take 24 hours to disassemble one of these large executables, I couldn’t imagine how long it would take on a 7-year-old computer.

What is your proudest moment or your most memorable project?

To be honest, I don’t do a lot of hacking because my main focus is growing GH and making tutorials. But my favourite accomplishment was reverse-engineering these custom file formats which contained game logic scripts for an old MMO game that were also encrypted with Blowfish encryption. I had never done anything with encryption before so there was a huge learning curve and it took me a month to finish, I had to reverse about 300 functions with an insane amount of inheritance before I figured out how it worked

With all the information I gained from reverse engineering I wrote a tool which:

• parses the custom package file format
• unpacks the main file into individual segments of compressed data
• decompresses the raw zlib streams
• decrypts the Blowfish encryption
• outputs decrypted files to disk

Then I’m able to edit these files and repack them into their original format with the same tool, essentially allowing me to mod the game however I want.

We can’t end this without asking, is there a specific type of hack you always make?

To be honest, I don’t do a lot of hacking or gaming because my main focus is growing GH and making tutorials. I also don’t like to destroy games or ruin it for other players, I just like reverse engineering, cheating is really secondary. But my goal for every first-person shooter is, a no recoil hack and ESP. An ESP lets you see enemy positions through walls. With these two hacks, I have enough competitive advantage to be near the top of the scoreboard without destroying the fun for other people. No one knows I’m cheating and I still get to win :)

Besides the basics like loops and functions, what programming language structures do you think are essential for game hacking?

Object-oriented programming and pointers are by far the most important paradigms people need to understand. The most common problem people have are with pointers, learning C++ is the best thing you can do to aid your reverse engineering skills. In addition, most games are coded in C++ and the translation from C to assembly and back to C is the easiest to learn. People who come from a background in interpreted languages will have a harder time learning reverse engineering than those who learned C/C++.

Do you have any suggestions for beginners?

Yes, I do, the entire purpose of my website is “Learn Game Hacking” so I have spent an insane amount of time thinking about this topic.

1. If you are not serious, don’t waste your time, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to learn
2. Be patient, reverse engineering is ridiculously time-consuming
3. Focus on the journey, not the goal. If you don’t like debugging for 8 hours a day, game hacking is not for you.
4. Do not learn to hack on a game you want to hack. Learn game hacking first, hack any game you want later. Learn using simple old games.
5. Do the Game Hacking Bible — a 70 chapter course that teaches you everything you could ever want to know about game hacking: https://guidedhacking.com/ghb