Updated June 2, 2026. Facepunch has rolled out the most aggressive anti-cheat measures in Rust history throughout 2026. Here's everything you need to know about EAC, Cerberus, Hydra, occlusion culling, TPM 2.0, and why ban waves work the way they do.
9 min read Updated June 2, 2026
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Here's a timeline of the most significant Rust anti-cheat events from the start of 2026 to now:
How many Rust bans happened in the 2026 ban wave?
Facepunch has issued over 290,000 bans in the past 12 months alone, with major ban waves occurring every 3-6 weeks throughout early 2026. Individual waves have caught 40,000+ accounts at once.
January 2026 — Facepunch kicks off the year with an aggressive ban wave, catching over 40,000 accounts in a single sweep. Reports flood Reddit and cheat forums of mass bans hitting even private cheat users. EAC signature databases receive a major silent update.
February 2026 — Server-side occlusion culling rolls out to all official servers. This is the most impactful anti-cheat change in years — the server no longer sends player position data through terrain, breaking the majority of ESP and wallhack cheats at a fundamental level. Multiple cheat providers go offline or announce extended downtime.
January 2026 February 2026 Early March 2026 Mid-March 2026 (Now)
Early March 2026 — TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enforcement begins expanding beyond premium servers. Several high-profile community servers adopt the requirement. HWID spoofing becomes significantly harder for low-quality spoofers.
Mid-March 2026 (Now) — EAC's machine learning detection receives another update, improving its ability to detect pixel-perfect aim patterns and unnatural movement. Facepunch confirms over 290,000 bans issued in the past 12 months — the highest annual figure ever recorded.
Rust doesn't rely on just one system — it runs several layers simultaneously, making it one of the hardest games to cheat in undetected. Understanding each layer is critical for anyone interested in how modern anti-cheat technology works.
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Unlike most games that rely on a single anti-cheat solution, Rust combines client-side scanning, server-side behavioral analysis, and a dedicated detection engine all working in concert. This multi-layered approach means that even if a cheat bypasses one system, the other layers can still catch it through different detection methods.
EAC is Rust's client-side anti-cheat. It runs directly on your computer and is designed to block, flag, and detect attempts to tamper with your game. Rust implements one of the most secure versions of EAC available, making it extremely difficult for public cheats to go undetected.
EAC scans running processes, loaded drivers, and memory regions to identify known cheat signatures. It also monitors for code injection, hooking, and other tampering techniques commonly used by game hacks. The Rust implementation of EAC is considered one of the strictest — features and scanning depth that are optional for other games are fully enabled in Rust.
This is the first wall any cheat must get past. Kernel-level cheats that load before EAC initializes have historically been the most successful at avoiding client-side detection, but even these face constant signature updates.
0% DETECTION RATE SINCE LAUNCH
Every VOIDEX product runs fully external, rebuilt within hours of a game patch, with the HWID spoofer included.
Cerberus runs server-side and tracks in-game activity to identify cheaters through behavioral analysis. It monitors various aspects of gameplay — movement patterns, aim consistency, reaction times, damage output, and resource gathering rates — and flags potential cheaters based on statistical anomalies.
What makes Cerberus particularly dangerous for cheaters is that even minor cheating can be flagged. You don't need to be rage-hacking with blatant aimbot for Cerberus to notice. Subtle advantages like slightly enhanced aim smoothing or unusually efficient pathing between resources can accumulate flags over time.
Because Cerberus operates entirely server-side, there is nothing on the client to bypass. No kernel-level trick or driver manipulation can prevent the server from observing your in-game behavior. The only defense against Cerberus is playing in a way that looks statistically normal — which is why cheat configuration and settings matter just as much as the cheat itself.
Hydra is the core engine of EAC, responsible for deep detection, hardware fingerprinting, and analyzing system processes running alongside the game. Think of Hydra as the brain behind EAC's detection capabilities.
When a detected cheat is used, Hydra flags it but does not immediately issue a ban. Instead, it sends the flagged data to Cerberus for further investigation and correlation. Over time, if enough Hydra flags accumulate against an account — combined with behavioral data from Cerberus — it leads to a ban.
This delayed-ban approach is deliberate. By not banning immediately, Facepunch prevents cheat developers from quickly determining exactly what triggered detection. It also allows them to catch the maximum number of users running the same cheat before anyone realizes it's been detected.
Hydra also collects hardware information (CPU, GPU, motherboard, RAM serial numbers, disk IDs) to build a hardware fingerprint. This fingerprint is what enables hardware bans — even if you buy a new Steam account, your hardware identity can get you banned again instantly.
The anti-cheat landscape for Rust has shifted dramatically. Here are the four biggest changes that have reshaped the cheating ecosystem: