How Games Anti-Debugging

April 15, 2025
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It has been observed that in recent years, the trend of game attacks has been diversified, mainly in the form of injection cheats, memory modification cheats, auto-click, hacking, etc. 

For a game, the consequences of being hacked are the most serious. A game being hacked means that the code logic and resource files within the game have the possibility of being analysed and tampered with by hackers.

Game Security Risk Distribution Percentage Chart
Game Security Risk Distribution Percentage Chart

Hacked version will damage the fairness of the game, causing a large loss of genuine players, damage to the revenue of the game party, and there is a risk that the code and art resources within the game will be stolen and dramatised.

As the intensity of game security confrontation increases, hacking methods have evolved into the form of combining static analysis and dynamic debugging. Hackers can conduct static analysis and dynamic debugging of the game by means of reverse analysis, and modify the logic of the game client code to create a hacked version. 

Compared with cheats, the impact of hacking on the game is even worse. The production threshold of the game hack version in some of the tools under the auspices of more simple, through frida, IDA and other tools can be debugging the game to analyse the production of hacked version.

frida debugging framework operation process
frida debugging framework operation process

Such as the common debugging framework on the market frida. frida based on Python and JavaScript, with high debugging efficiency, wide range of applications. Can achieve cross-platform dynamic debugging, widely used in Andriod, iOS, Windows, Linux and other almost all-platform application debugging.

The use of frida threshold is low, dynamic debugging process only need to write scripts through frida comes with tools injected into the game process, you can HOOK key functions within the game, such as the game character attack power, life value, the game logic of victory and defeat, the logic of the surrender judgement, etc., and in the process of using, without having to analyse the source code of the program to be debugged.

Common debugging tools also include IDA, which has powerful static analysis capabilities and dynamic debugging capabilities, and can even remotely debug SO files and direct debugging of pseudo-code, so IDA tools are often used to bypass the existing in-game protection.

IDA remote debugging SO library
IDA remote debugging SO library

JikGuard provides customised solutions to security issues arising from hacked games. The protection solution has been applied to a number of popular games and has been proven to provide excellent protection.

Active identification of malicious modules

Unlike other security products in the market, which need to obtain samples and then fight against cheats, JikGuard's exclusive ‘active identification of malicious module mechanism’ actively identifies suspicious modules, and together with the online combat features, achieves proactive defence, which significantly shortens the cycle of cheats investigation.

Anti-debugging Features

JikGuard prevents cheats authors from debugging the game, preventing static or dynamic analysis of the game, and immediately flashing back once IDA/frida and other debugging analysis tools are detected.

Anti-hack features

JikGuard's exclusive API-free signature verification technology deeply encrypts the game's engine and code, and performs multiple checks on game package signatures and file integrity, preventing the game from being implanted with malicious modules, culling advertisements, and so on.
 

JikGuard.com, a high-tech security service provider focusing on game protection and anti-cheat, is committed to helping game companies solve the problem of cheats and hacks, and providing deeply integrated encryption protection solutions for games.

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