this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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I'm not a programmer or cheater or anything, but I think the answer is yes and no. Yes it could technically be done and even work as intended as long as the device is locked down to prevent the user from replacing the shipped kernel (which would be a bad thing for users). However, savvy people could (in theory) make custom kernels that lie to the kernel module, causing the module to report there is no cheating when there is. It's my understanding that it's close to the current situation with Windows and virtual machines and anticheat: you can cheat by running your game in a VM and then have that virtual hardware extract secret information or flip bits in the right spots. Most competitive games will refuse to run in a VM for this reason.
Kernel level anti cheats require secure boot. You can't just "lie" and load an unsigned kernel.
Linux secure boot was a little weird last I checked. The kernel and modules don't need to be secure boot signed. Most distros can use shim to pass secure boot and then take over the secure boot process.
There are dkms kernel modules that are user compiled. These are signed using a machine owner key. So the machine owner could for sure compile their own malicious version and still be in a secure boot context.