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Vanguard HWID & SSD Spoofing: Secure Boot vs. Driver Loading Order
Boys, I have been digging into the Vanguard architecture again, specifically targeting the SSD serial spoofing loop. We are hitting the classic catch-22 with Secure Boot and custom drivers, and I wanted to see if anyone in the scene has found a reliable way to bypass the chain of trust without nuking the game access.
The Technical Bottleneck:
As most of you know, Vanguard is aggressive with its hardware checks, specifically pulling SSD serials early in the boot process. If you go the manual mapping or self-signed driver route at StartType 0, you inevitably trip the Secure Boot requirement, which Valorant forces for game access.
The Current Problem Set:
I have been looking into EFI-level patching, but that is a rabbit hole of its own. Has anyone here had success with manipulating the serials via an EFI shim or perhaps hooking the disk device object before the filesystem initializes?
A few questions for the gurus here:
I am not trying to get into a discussion about public spoofs—most of those are just registry-level garbage anyway. I am looking for the actual kernel/EFI work. If anyone has poked around in the memory of the early-load drivers or has experience with manual serial spoofing on modern Windows builds, drop your thoughts below. Let’s figure out how to keep the hardware clean without the "Van: Restriction" headache.
Anyone else testing this specific path, or am I wasting cycles on a dead end?
Boys, I have been digging into the Vanguard architecture again, specifically targeting the SSD serial spoofing loop. We are hitting the classic catch-22 with Secure Boot and custom drivers, and I wanted to see if anyone in the scene has found a reliable way to bypass the chain of trust without nuking the game access.
The Technical Bottleneck:
As most of you know, Vanguard is aggressive with its hardware checks, specifically pulling SSD serials early in the boot process. If you go the manual mapping or self-signed driver route at StartType 0, you inevitably trip the Secure Boot requirement, which Valorant forces for game access.
The Current Problem Set:
- Driver Loading: Getting a kernel-mode driver to execute before the Vanguard monitor is trivial if you are comfortable with early-load drivers, but the lack of a legitimate certificate means Secure Boot has to go.
- The Vanguard Check: Since Vanguard forces Secure Boot, you are essentially locked out of the engine the moment you disable it to hide your serials.
- The Amifldrv64.sys Approach: I tested using legit, signed drivers for memory patching, but the timing is always too late. By the time the handle is open, the serials have already been logged and sent to the mothership.
I have been looking into EFI-level patching, but that is a rabbit hole of its own. Has anyone here had success with manipulating the serials via an EFI shim or perhaps hooking the disk device object before the filesystem initializes?
A few questions for the gurus here:
- Driver Signing:** Are any of you currently using a custom certificate chain for your drivers, or are you just sticking to manual mapping once the kernel is alive?
[*]Disk Controller Hooks:** Has anyone successfully spoofed the hardware serials at the controller level instead of fighting the driver load order?
[*]Secure Boot Bypass:** Is there a way to trick the platform into reporting "Secure Boot Enabled" to the game while a custom bootloader/driver is actually running the show?
I am not trying to get into a discussion about public spoofs—most of those are just registry-level garbage anyway. I am looking for the actual kernel/EFI work. If anyone has poked around in the memory of the early-load drivers or has experience with manual serial spoofing on modern Windows builds, drop your thoughts below. Let’s figure out how to keep the hardware clean without the "Van: Restriction" headache.
Anyone else testing this specific path, or am I wasting cycles on a dead end?
