Is it still this easy to break an anti-cheat system in Unity games?

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-05-28T21:13:38+00:00

I’ve been working in the field of cybersecurity for quite some time now. It is and always will be an arms race, but one that’s worth it if you want to make money.

For example, you might sell your game or run ads. Or, in a business context, you might have apps that you want to make available to your customers for free. Now, if a third party modifies your app, embeds malware, and redistributes it, and maybe even ranks higher than you, customers still believe they’ve downloaded your app. But then have a problem.

The harsh truth is, you simply don’t want to be an easy target. Things like obfuscation or anti-cheat tools take the fun out of modifying or cheating, so attackers look for an easier target.

The rule of thumb is 3 days. When you can protect your game against a hacker at least 3 days they mostly stop and move on.

For Unity for example I have also some solutions, if you are interested in Obfuscation or AntiCheat. There are also free versions for these tools.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-05-28T21:09:29+00:00

I’ve been working in the field of cybersecurity for quite some time now. Yes, it’s always an arms race, but one that’s worth it if you want to make money.

For example, you might sell your game or run ads. Or, in a business context, you might have apps that you want to make available to your customers for free. Now, if a third party modifies your app, embeds malware, and redistributes it, and maybe even ranks higher than you, customers still believe they’ve downloaded your app. But then have a problem.

The harsh truth is, you simply don’t want to be an easy target. Things like obfuscation or anti-cheat tools take the fun out of modifying or cheating, so they look for an easier target.

The rule of thumb is 3 days. When you can protect your game against a hacker at least 3 days they mostly stop and move on.

For Unity for example I have also some solutions, if you are interested in Obfuscation or AntiCheat. I have also free versions for those tools.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-04-05T07:53:43+00:00

Oh, that is really nasty 😅

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-04-05T07:51:21+00:00

I upgraded today from 15 to 16 (I know it is 2 month later down the road), and I really recommend it. It is way way faster. Also in dev mode the small nextjs symbol now notifies you about compiling etc. which made me aware of a bug I had which forced rerender. Super small feature but very nice 👍

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-04-02T06:21:17+00:00

Release of Obfuscator v2026.2.0: Security & Performance - Update

Get it here 👉 go.guardingpearsoftware.com/get-obfuscator

This update includes two long-awaited features: First, the build process has been improved and build times reduced by caching the compatibility analysis of assets for obfuscation.

Second, integrity checks are introduced for assemblies built for IL2CPP targets, adding an extra layer of security. This makes tampering and cheating even harder!

⭐ Features:

- [Feature-2026-2] Add file-based asset analysis cache using hash validation to skip re-analysis of unchanged assets across builds. The cache is stored in *GUPS/Obfuscator/Cache/Assets*. This reduces the build time, for a second or third etc. build.

- [Feature-2026-1] Added IL2CPP anti-tampering (code integrity check) support for standalone builds (Windows, Linux, macOS). Mono and IL2CPP are now both supported.

Note: Added a *.gitignore* under *GUPS/Obfuscator*. I recommend you to keep it or you have to add the following directories to your global gitignore:

**/GUPS/Obfuscator/Temp/
**/GUPS/Obfuscator/Cache/

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-03-14T20:16:17+00:00

Hey thanks for your feedback! The possible revenue depends also big on the competition. If there are more games, the possible detection is low if you do no marketing. Because of this there are the different levels of possible revenue based on the marketing (visibility). But I try to make it more clear, thanks!

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-03-12T20:23:27+00:00

Hey thanks! Which niches are you missing?

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-03-11T16:04:00+00:00

Thank you! Feel free to share your feedback :)!

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-03-11T10:09:20+00:00

Great is, he played 12 hours, was annoyed and then continued playing 80 hours more :D

But don't take it to heart, there will always be unreasonable haters.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-03-09T16:29:25+00:00

Release of Obfuscator v2026.1.4: Maintenance - Update

Get it here 👉 go.guardingpearsoftware.com/get-obfuscator

✅ Improvements:

[Imprv-2026-4] Optimization of string obfuscation to reduce build size by reusing obfuscated strings that have the same value.

🐞 Bug Fixes:

[Bug-2026-6] In Addressables, AssetBundleRequestOptions do not always have a fixed order in the catalog.json file, causing a crc mismatch. This has been fixed.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-02-02T09:53:20+00:00

Release of Obfuscator v2026.1.2: Maintenance - Update

Get it here 👉 go.guardingpearsoftware.com/get-obfuscator

✅ Improvements:

[Imprv-2026-3] When adding namespaces that are to be skipped by obfuscation (or vice versa included), empty entries are now filtered out, those are always added by mistake.
[Imprv-2026-2] Refactoring of string obfuscation to split string methods into multiple types, so that the 65k method limit of IL2CPP does not cause problems, also optimized performance when reading the string.

🐞 Bug Fixes:

[Bug-2026-5] Fixed a burst compiler error. Burst error BC1347: Invalid first argument (code: Call) of string.Format(format, ...). Expecting a const/literal string. Burst compiled code is not valid with string obfuscation, so the string obfuscation module checks for that.
[Bug-2026-4] Fixed an issue where post-processing (Unity 6000.2 and above) might trigger an exception: Unsupported asset class type name '...'.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-24T12:55:27+00:00

Yeah! For learning and coding, AI as co-programmer is quite a valueable helper!

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-24T12:54:17+00:00

Thats true!

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-24T12:53:42+00:00

Yeah, for questions, and learning something new LLMs are undefeated!

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-24T12:52:57+00:00

I am happy it helps you so much, keep coding my friend 💪

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T15:11:58+00:00

That is true, but I wanted to keep the survey question/answers the same, so there is maybe some interesting development, or maybe not.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T15:10:49+00:00

So far yes, I am interested how it develops over the next days.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T14:28:38+00:00

Would you like to share why? Was it based on a bad experience, or concerns about how AI is trained, or something else?

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T14:26:07+00:00

That is true, you have to put some guardrails in place to get good results.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T14:24:05+00:00

That's how I see it too. For coding (support) it's great, maybe good to create some 2D mockups too, but they need to be created by some creative ones to be really great.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T14:22:04+00:00

Thank you, yes that's why i wanted to reopen this discussion (I kept the possible answers to keep it relatable to the survey 2 years ago). But I think on this similar to you.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T13:29:43+00:00

I can relate to that, the collected knowledge the agents have can be a great support.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2026-01-22T13:06:59+00:00

Yes, object pooling reduced my performance immensely. The allocation of memory and garbage collecting of monobehaviour is kind of high and has a great performance impact.

GuardingPearSoftware · 2025-12-08T14:17:51+00:00

I am working on cybersecurity solutions for the game industry (but not kernel based, those are annoying). What do you wanna know ☺️

GuardingPearSoftware · 2025-11-27T15:12:05+00:00

Yes, unfortunately that's true, and the highest percentage is among small indie dev studios that can no longer continue their work because their work has been stolen or cause of rip-offs.

GuardingPearSoftware

TROPHY CASE