Addressing the swirling rumors about 'SSD bricking' incidents following a recent 'Valorant' update, Riot Games has issued a statement clarifying that enhancements to its anti-cheat system, Vanguard, will not harm computers or their hardware. Instead, these updates are designed to specifically disable cheating devices. According to the official explanation, the May 2026 update bolstered the utilization of IOMMU (Input/Output Memory Management Unit), which inadvertently led to reports of solid-state drives (SSDs) 'failing' among a subset of players employing PCIe DMA (Direct Memory Access) cheating hardware.

It's important to note that this issue is confined to players utilizing specialized cheating techniques; the vast majority of players, who engage in the game fairly, will not experience any adverse effects. In instances where Vanguard's protection mechanisms are triggered and a cheating device is detected, the consequence may be that the operating system fails to boot. To rectify this, users will be required to physically remove the offending cheating hardware and proceed with a system reinstallation to restore normal operation.