Hacks Dictionary

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A collection of terms used in the anti-cheating and cheating world.

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Aimbot: Hack that aims for the cheater. (See "Types of Hacks")

Banlist: List of GUIDs and/or Names that prohibit players from entering a game server.

Cheater: Is not a hacker! A cheater is someone who either finds a way, or runs a program (usually downloaded), which gives him/her an unfair advantage in a particular game.

Client Hook: Usually in games with an SDK already out, a client hook will Hijack the games functions for use in hack methods. These hacks have the most features and are the hardest to make.

Cracker: The opposite of hacker. A cracker is the evil hacker. One who manipulates programs in malicious ways.

Cvar: Variables used withing games to change the way in which the game functions. Used in all scripting and most hacks. They may however have legitimate uses (ex. Screen_Brightness "1" could be a game Cvar that changes your brightness.)

Direct3D: A very popular graphical engine which is used a great number of games. This engine can be hooked, allowing the programmer to change the way functions work, as well as add their own functions. This can lead to cheats such as Wallhack and ESP. Also known as D3D.

ESP: Stands for 'Extrasensory Perception'. In game terms this is a cheat. It usually allows the cheating player to 'see' every other player, to a degree. It generally attaches a tab to each player with their name, health, weapon, distance and reload time, or a combination thereof.

Hacker: A very misinterpreted word. Originally a hacker was a person who would manipulate a products’ software or hardware for the better. Over time the term hacker would become mixed up (generalized) with the term "cracker."

Hook: A program which intergrates itself/its code with another EXE or DLL. This gives the user the ability to easily change the code in the target.

L337sp33k: Method of writing whereby the writer uses characters similar in appearence to letters in the alphabet. (ex. n00b, l337, h4x)

Memory Hack: When games are ran, their code is mapped in memory. This can be useful to hackers, giving them the ability to do everything from enhancing their characters speed, to gaining the position of enemies.

OpenGL: Another graphical engine. Check Direct3D.

Polymorphic Executable: A file which doesn't have a fixed state, therefore it is hard to be detected by anti-cheat software. Coded and tested by me, this works, though I haven't seen any in circulation.

Punkbuster: Another major anticheat, that implements hardware bans and a global ban from all punkbuster supported games.

Speedhack/Speedcheat: A cheat which will either be part of a multicheat/hack or an external program intended for speeding up Windows programs. This type of cheat will allow the offending player to move quicker than he should be allowed.

Wallhack: Hack that allows the cheater to effectively see enemies through walls. Most often done in one of two ways: Making game entities transparent, or by overlaying signifiers in-game.

Wrapper: Based on the idea that the exe will check the current directory for a dll, before checking the system directory. If a user puts a Direct3D or OpenGL DLL in their game directory, this will be found before the real one (located in the windows system folder), and so can alter calls to functions before they reach the real dll. Very easy to protect against because a dll is required in the games directory.

VAC: Valve Software's first anti-cheat developed and eventually abandoned due to its numerous flaws.

VAC2 : Valve Software's second and best anti-cheat. Implimented in summer of 2005 it continues to reduce the number of cheaters in all Valves multiplayer games (i.e. Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, etc)

This list will be developed more as I go. Feel free to add your own terms to this category.