Fortnite developer Epic Games is introducing stricter anti-cheat requirements for PC players competing in tournaments, marking one of its most significant hardware-level security updates to date.

From February 19, all PC tournament participants must have Secure Boot, TPM (Trusted Platform Module), and IOMMU enabled. While Secure Boot and TPM have previously been required in certain competitive settings, expanding the requirement to all tournaments — and adding IOMMU — shows they’re pushing even heavier for a fair playing field in all competition.

IOMMU is a hardware security feature that controls how devices access system memory. In simple terms, it helps prevent external hardware-based cheats from reading or manipulating Fortnite’s memory while the game is running. This closes off one of the more sophisticated methods for bypassing traditional software detection.

Epic Expands Anti-Cheat Strategy

Epic says around 95% of Fortnite’s PC player base is already running Windows 11-compatible systems. That means most competitive players should either meet the new standards already or be able to enable them through their BIOS settings without needing new hardware.

Epic continues to rely on Easy Anti-Cheat’s kernel-level protections, alongside data monitoring and machine learning systems designed to detect suspicious behavior, now adding the

Epic also says it actively patches exploits before they spread and works to make its systems harder to reverse engineer. In-game reporting remains a key tool for identifying cheaters at scale.

Already Beating Cheaters in Court

While the focus is shifting further toward prevention, enforcement efforts are ongoing. In 2025, Epic secured a $175,000 court judgment against a tournament cheater who failed to respond to a lawsuit.

https://twitter.com/FNCompetitive/status/1937966876790751232

They also filed a lawsuit against an individual who developed and sold cheating software, as well as several people who helped sell it.