This month we’ve already seen an excellent example of anti-cheat work in the form of fake cheating software for CSGO, but one vigilante appears to have done so well that Riot’s offered him a job.
Mohamed Al-Sharifi, also known as GamerDoc, is a 24-year-old Iraqi living in London who has spent two years catching cheaters in Overwatch and Valorant. As explained in a profile by Vice, Al-Sharifi managed to discover several different methods used by cheaters in Valorant, and got the vulnerabilities patched out after providing Riot with the necessary information. He even ran a Discord channel for the Overwatch Police Department, which managed to expose players who were win-trading in Overwatch. He did all this despite receiving death threats and absolutely no pay for his work – but it at least looks like the latter is about to change.
“Finally I can say that I [have] been working closely with Riot to the point they asked me to join them in the fight against cheaters,” Al-Sharifi said in a TwitLonger post. “I will be exclusively working for Riot and not other titles anymore – I hope many of you understand why.”
“I am grateful to have been given a second chance in life,” Al-Sharifi said, adding he’d almost become homeless again four months ago, a point he described as “the darkest era” of his life. “I fled from a country of war, I came here for a sense of security and comfort, I am not well educated [and] I didn’t pass my exams since I came pretty late to school.