Game Hacking Techniques Overview
This skill covers game hacking techniques documented in the awesome-game-security collection, including memory manipulation, rendering overlays, input simulation, and exploitation methods.
Core Concepts Memory Manipulation Read Process Memory (RPM) Write Process Memory (WPM) Pattern scanning Pointer chains Structure reconstruction Process Injection DLL injection methods Manual mapping Shellcode injection Thread hijacking APC injection Hooking Techniques Inline hooking (detours) IAT/EAT hooking VTable hooking Hardware breakpoint hooks Syscall hooking Cheat Categories Visual Cheats (ESP) - World-to-Screen transformation - Player/entity rendering - Box ESP, skeleton ESP - Item highlighting - Radar/minimap hacks
Aim Assistance - Aimbot algorithms - Triggerbot (auto-fire) - No recoil/no spread - Bullet prediction - Silent aim
Movement Cheats - Speed hacks - Fly hacks - No clip - Teleportation - Bunny hop automation
Miscellaneous - Wallhacks - Skin changers - Unlock all - Economy manipulation
Overlay & Rendering Overlay Methods DirectX Hook: D3D9/11/12 Present hook Vulkan Hook: vkQueuePresentKHR hook OpenGL Hook: wglSwapBuffers hook DWM Overlay: Desktop Window Manager External Window: Transparent overlay window Steam Overlay: Hijacking Steam's overlay NVIDIA Overlay: GeForce Experience hijack Rendering Libraries Dear ImGui: Immediate mode GUI GDI/GDI+: Windows graphics Direct2D: Hardware-accelerated 2D Memory Access Methods User-Mode - OpenProcess + ReadProcessMemory - NtReadVirtualMemory - Memory-mapped files - Shared memory sections
Kernel-Mode - Driver-based access - Physical memory access - MDL-based copying - KeStackAttachProcess
Advanced Methods - DMA (Direct Memory Access) - EFI runtime services - Hypervisor-based access - Hardware-based (FPGA)
Driver Communication Methods IOCTL-based Shared memory Registry callbacks Syscall hooks Data pointer swaps Common Patterns // Data pointer swap example NtUserGetObjectInformation NtConvertBetweenAuxiliaryCounterAndPerformanceCounter Win32k syscall hooks
World-to-Screen Calculation Basic Formula Vector2 WorldToScreen(Vector3 worldPos, Matrix viewMatrix) { Vector4 clipCoords; clipCoords.x = worldPos.x * viewMatrix[0] + worldPos.y * viewMatrix[4] + worldPos.z * viewMatrix[8] + viewMatrix[12]; clipCoords.y = worldPos.x * viewMatrix[1] + worldPos.y * viewMatrix[5] + worldPos.z * viewMatrix[9] + viewMatrix[13]; clipCoords.w = worldPos.x * viewMatrix[3] + worldPos.y * viewMatrix[7] + worldPos.z * viewMatrix[11] + viewMatrix[15];
if (clipCoords.w < 0.1f) return invalid;
Vector2 NDC;
NDC.x = clipCoords.x / clipCoords.w;
NDC.y = clipCoords.y / clipCoords.w;
Vector2 screen;
screen.x = (screenWidth / 2) * (NDC.x + 1);
screen.y = (screenHeight / 2) * (1 - NDC.y);
return screen;
}
Engine-Specific Techniques Unity (Mono) Assembly-CSharp.dll analysis Mono JIT hooking Il2CppDumper for IL2CPP builds Method address resolution Unity (IL2CPP) GameAssembly.dll analysis Metadata recovery Type reconstruction Native hooking Unreal Engine GObjects/GNames enumeration UWorld traversal SDK generation (Dumper-7) Blueprint hooking Source Engine Entity list enumeration NetVars parsing ConVar manipulation Signature scanning Input Simulation Methods SendInput API mouse_event/keybd_event DirectInput hooking Raw input injection Driver-based input (mouclass) Kernel-Level Mouse class service callback Keyboard filter drivers HID manipulation Anti-Detection Techniques Code Protection Polymorphic code Code virtualization Anti-dump techniques String encryption Runtime Evasion Stack spoofing Return address manipulation Thread context hiding Module concealment Development Workflow External Cheat 1. Pattern scan for signatures 2. Read game memory externally 3. Process data in separate process 4. Render overlay or use input simulation
Internal Cheat 1. Inject into game process 2. Hook rendering functions 3. Access game objects directly 4. Render through game's graphics context
Learning Resources Communities UnknownCheats GuidedHacking Game Hacking Academy Practice Targets PWN Adventure (intentionally vulnerable) CTF game challenges Older/unsupported games Data Source
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