Fortnite Anti-Cheat Update - February 27, 2025

In November, we shared an update on competitive integrity in Fortnite and promised that we’d share more about our continued efforts to fight cheating. Here’s another update:

Taking Legal Action Against Cheaters and Other Rulebreakers

Epic continues to take legal action against those found cheating in Fortnite, helping others cheat, or breaking other rules. Here are some examples:

• Today, we filed a new lawsuit against an individual who stole Fortnite accounts and resold them.
   
• We recently announced a lawsuit against a player who cheated in our tournaments and reached a settlement with another.
   
• Following legal action, the makers of the Cronus devices removed Fortnite and Rocket League gamepacks and scripts from their website that help people cheat. Additionally, Cronus hardware and any other device that offers a competitive advantage are restricted and will result in a cheating ban. 

While the consequence is a cheating ban at minimum, it may also include the loss of tournament winnings and other legal repercussions.

New PC Requirements for Tournaments

We’re also focused on combatting cheating in tournaments, where competitive integrity is the cornerstone. For tournaments like FNCS events that require an Account Level of 350 or higher to be eligible, Windows PC players will need to enable two Windows security features starting today: TPM and Secure Boot.

• What is TPM? TPM is a secure hardware component. It can verify that other security settings, like Secure Boot, are enabled in a way that is very difficult for malware or cheats to tamper with. Instructions on how to enable TPM can be found here.
   
• What is Secure Boot? Secure Boot is a security feature that helps prevent malware from being inserted into the PC’s boot process. It’s common for cheats to behave like bootkits and attempt to run very early into the system start. Secure boot helps to mitigate that threat by making sure that bootloaders come from a trusted source. Instructions on how to enable Secure Boot can be found here.

Offering a Second Chance

While maintaining game integrity is our top priority, we also believe in allowing second chances for players who made a bad decision and have learned from it. Starting in April, we’ll be moving to a one-year matchmaking ban for first-time cheating offenses, allowing former cheaters to learn from their mistakes while still punishing and deterring cheating. A second offense will result in a lifetime ban.

This means for the duration of their first ban, players will be able to log in and text/voice chat with other players, but won’t be able to matchmake into Epic- or creator-made experiences, or spectate other players. 

As part of rolling out this policy, existing lifetime cheating bans that have been in effect for more than a year will be lifted.

Details:

• Players who have used cheats: One-year matchmaking ban for the first offense, lifetime ban for the second.
   
• Players who have used cheats and participate in tournaments: One-year matchmaking ban + immediate lifetime ban from tournaments + potential loss of past tournament winnings. A second offense of using cheats will result in a lifetime ban.
   
• Players who have sold cheats, or broken other rules resulting in a lifetime ban: Nothing changes. The lifetime ban is still in effect. 

Additional consequences may include legal repercussions.

Other Ways We Fight Cheating 

Fighting cheating inside Fortnite or any other large online platform is an ongoing effort with no single, simple solution. Once a specific cheat is detected, cheat developers and cheaters look for workarounds. 

We prevent game-breaking exploits, make game code harder for cheat creators to analyze, leverage Easy Anti-Cheat’s kernel driver to protect the game while it runs, and utilize statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms to identify suspicious activity. We’re continually developing detections to help us effectively identify and confirm instances of cheating. 

We ban accounts for cheating based on technical evidence — we do not ban accounts based on suspicion. Anyone found cheating will be banned, there are no exceptions. As explained above, we may also pursue legal action.

How You Can Help

In-game reports help us identify and action cheaters every day. Anyone who has received our “Suspect Apprehended” message knows this well. If you suspect someone may be cheating, submit a report inside Fortnite.