An emulator is software that simulates an Android mobile operating system on a PC. It addresses the pain point of insufficient storage space on mobile devices and prevents the awkward overheating of phones during extended gaming sessions. For certain game genres, using keyboard and mouse controls also enhances the player's gaming experience.
The design of emulators offers convenience to players, yet certain features have been exploited by the Game Black/Gray Industry, effectively becoming accomplices to the operation of Cheats. How to detect emulators has become a major challenge for game developers. This article analyzes scenarios where the Game Black/Gray Industry utilizes emulators for cheating through case studies and proposes an emulator detection solution.
Root Access
Root access represents the highest level of privileges in the Android system, enabling memory access and modification capabilities. Some emulators only require locating a button within their settings to activate root access, thereby providing an environment for running Cheats.
JikGuard also discovered that certain Cheats exploit emulators' ability to toggle root privileges in real time without requiring a reboot. This allows them to gain root access while remaining undetected by the game's anti-root mechanisms.
Auto Click
The Auto Click feature of emulators has also been exploited by certain Game Black/Gray Industry studios. Emulators can record the current device's click operations to create scripts, setting parameters such as execution frequency and intervals. Combined with multi-instance functionality, a single machine can run scripts 24/7 to acquire game resources, making this technique widely adopted by studios across various scenarios.
Asymmetric Advantage
When playing action or shooter games, players must juggle movements, attacks, crouching, and camera adjustments. With buttons crammed onto a narrow mobile screen, complex controls can be unfriendly for some players. This is where using keyboard and mouse controls on an emulator becomes exceptionally convenient.
However, in games featuring PvP scenarios, using keyboard and mouse on emulators reduces the difficulty of gameplay, creating a natural asymmetry. This can severely dampen the enthusiasm of mobile players during matches, necessitating the regulation of emulator usage based on the specific game context.
Although emulators pose certain security risks in gaming, we cannot simply disable them outright. To address these issues, JikGuard has developed tailored solutions for different game genres and scenarios. These solutions have been integrated into multiple popular games and have demonstrated outstanding protective capabilities.
Emulator Detection
Unlike other products on the market, JikGuard's hardening employs deeper-level detection methods to precisely identify game runtime environments. It can recognize various high-risk environments such as emulators, rooted devices, cloud phones, virtual machines, virtual frameworks, and jailbroken devices, while providing customized crash prevention strategies.
Anti-Cheat Functionality
To address the threat of memory-modifying cheats in games, JikGuard has dedicated itself to developing a “behavioral detection solution.” Without relying on signature-based detection, this intelligent monitoring system accurately identifies memory-modifying cheats and their variants, providing effective protection.
Studio Detection
JikGuard's proprietary solution intelligently analyzes and mines featureless private scripts to identify and flag studio accounts. It automatically interfaces with game operators for account suspension, delivering highly efficient protection.
