Let’s face it, no one likes having cheaters and hackers on their Minecraft servers. This ruins the fun for everyone else, as they can easily kill players, raid bases, or quickly collect resources. Anarchy servers are discluded though, since they have no rules. The vast majority of the Minecraft community tries their best to prevent, catch, and punish these rule breakers. There’s a lot of clever ways hackers infiltrate your world, but equally there are methods for countering them. How can I protect my server? Are there any plugins or mods to help? Don’t worry, we’ll be answering all your questions so you can prevent cheaters and hackers on your Minecraft. Let’s begin!
Cheating Tactics
There are several tactics for cheating, with some involving downloadable files or simple texture packs. The most common method is using hacked clients, which provide players with godly amounts of power. For example, you can enable flight without any operator permissions! This can pose enormous problems for most server owners, especially if it’s heavily combat-related. Aimbot and extra reach is entirely possible with these clients, so be wary. Other tactics can be seeing through blocks to find bases or ores to easily get strong equipment. Setting all this up is actually rather easy and simple to do, but could lead to unforeseen consequences.
Hacked Clients
Hacked clients are similar to Forge and Fabric setups, as they allow for modifications that change Minecraft. However, cheaters use them with everything already built-in the launcher. This means they don’t have to download mods, as all the features are included in the client. It’s only on their computer, so it allows them to join almost any server without issue. This makes it so they can freely cheat and hack anywhere without being noticed. Don’t worry though, if they start obviously flying around or something similar, moderators in servers tend to ban them.
Resource Packs
Besides using hacked clients, many players may download sneaky resource packs to xray in-game. This is an extremely popular method to cheat, which almost goes undetectable by many server owners. All this does is replace textures with emptiness or outlines of worthless blocks, allowing players to view ores, chests, and more. Similarly to clients, this is all on their computer and isn’t directly impacting the server. This is by far the most common “hack” to commit in Minecraft, leading owners or admins to find fixes.
Prevention Methods
Preventing cheats and hacks in your Minecraft server might sound difficult, but not impossible. There are many plugins and modifications to use for protection, with most of them being very similar. If you’re hosting a Vanilla Minecraft server, then there isn’t much to do sadly. Only specific setups can successfully prevent these cheaters and hackers. Don’t worry, it’s extremely easy to set up and use on your server! Unless you’re wanting to completely customize the addons, as that takes a bit of technical knowledge.
Anticheats
The first method to prevent any cheats and hacks in the server is using anticheats. These are large plugins or modifications that manage everything in-game, from block interactions to movement. It does this by checking a player’s actions in the world, with parameters in place to see if they violate any impossible factors. For example, flying in the sky at intense speeds without creative mode or anything else triggers violations for that user in the anticheat. In some cases, they’ll be banned or kicked instantly once this is detected.
Other times, they’ll have to reach a certain point before any punishment is passed on them. If you’re using Paper, Spigot, or another bukkit-related server, then consider trying NoCheatPlus. Alternatively, Forge setups can try the WatchDog Anti Cheat system to see if that helps. There are countless others online for you to research, which we advise you do if these aren’t suitable for you.
Security Addons
Combining anticheats with security plugins or mods can be the best thing to do for your server, as it tends to counteract any cheaters and hackers. These sometimes are standalone systems to protect against specific actions in-game, such as the Anti-AutoClicker plugin preventing advantages. There’s many of them out there to possibly use on your server. Due to this, you may want to find mods or plugins that are suitable for your setup. Otherwise, you can simply enable whitelist to allow only trustworthy players to join and enjoy the world.
Conclusion
There you have it, cheaters and hackers may plague servers across Minecraft, but can be prevented. Whether you’re using mods or plugins, there are solutions to ensure no one is having more advantages than others. However, having an active staff team protecting the server is highly recommended. This allows admins or moderators to kick and ban rule breakers from the world, if found guilty. Using addons and this combined together will lead to a safe environment for everyone. We hope this blog helped you learn a bit more about hacking, cheating, and how to prevent it in Minecraft. Have a good one, gamers!
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