26,000 CS2 accounts reportedly banned in recent VAC wave

Valve's anti-cheat tool, VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat), is reportedly working better than ever and rapidly banning accounts in CS2. A VAC ban wave started earlier this month (May 2024) and many hackers were removed from servers worldwide. A new report suggests that at least 26,000 CS2 accounts have been banned by the VAC between April 26 and May 8, 2024.

The figures are most likely a close estimation of the number of accounts banned. Here's more about the recent bans.

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VAC reportedly bans 26,000 accounts within 2 weeks in CS2

Over the years, players have started losing faith in Valve Anti-Cheat or VAC, as it seemingly wasn't keeping the cheaters out. Many reported spinbots and wallhacks in most of their games. However, in April 2024, this situation started changing.

In the first week of May 2024, thousands of accounts were reportedly banned, with May 3 reportedly seeing over 3000 VAC bans placed on individual accounts throughout the game.

It was very sudden for many when VAC just started taking players off the grid for cheating. Several matches were also canceled for suspected "irregular gameplay". This was an indication that the anti-cheat was finally working.

Soon, reports of many players accused of cheating complaining about getting VAC banned also took the wind. This, paired with a decrease in CS2 player count, backs the claim that the bans were working.

Moreover, Valve has also reportedly made progress on the Overwatch system, which allows a few trusted partners to review issues where someone may have been cheating. The Overwatch system also holds all the rights necessary to ban someone from the game. While Overwatch bans are still rare, they are a possibility still. VAC bans, on the other hand, are much more common and keep coming in waves.

It would appear that this latest wave has lasted for a long time and probably won't go quiet anytime soon as the anti-cheat system learns more and more about irregular behavior in games. CS2's VAC is rapidly developing and cheaters are continuously getting banned, with the numbers projected to soar even higher in the coming weeks.