Barely days after Valve quietly rolled out its new VACNet Labeling Portal, cheaters appear to be already abusing the system to circumvent bans.
Valve launched the browser-based review tool on August 11, 2026, reviving the spirit of CS:GO’s old Overwatch system but with several notable differences. Players who get invited to the VACNet Labeling Portal are able to watch short, X-Ray-enabled clips of suspicious behavior and label any suspicious behavior they come across, including aim assist, wall hack, auto bhop, or farming bot.
The data from the VACNet Labeling Portal doesn’t directly ban the suspected players in the clips, but helps train future VACNet models to punish cheaters more effectively.
However, according to reports circulating online, cheaters may have already found a way to undermine Valve’s latest measure.
Cheaters have reportedly built automated tools that log into the portal and systematically mark obviously cheating clips as clean. These cheaters are also actively inviting other cheaters into the program specifically to flood the system with false verdicts, effectively poisoning the training data at scale.
For the unaware, anyone receiving an invite to the VACNet Labeling Portal is able to invite other players to the system for every 100 video reviews they complete.
The aforementioned exploit that the cheaters are using could mean that legitimate, blatant cheating footage is being labeled as clean in large enough volume to skew what VACNet learns to recognize as normal play.
Valve has not made a statement on this issue or detailed any countermeasures against this kind of coordinated false labeling at the time of writing.
Whether Valve moves quickly to patch the abuse or lets it play out as it studies reviewer behavior still remains to be seen.
