HoYoKProtect (HoYoverse anti-cheat)
HoYoKProtect is HoYoverse's current in-house kernel anti-cheat, shipped as the driver HoYoKProtect.sys inside the install folder of Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero, and Honkai Impact 3rd, according to HoYoverse's own published package file lists. It replaced the older mhyprot drivers in Genshin Impact by version 4.1 (September 2023) and Tencent's Anti-Cheat Expert in Honkai: Star Rail from version 2.6 (October 2024). It is a different driver from the legacy mhyprot2.sys, and as of October 2026 it is not on Microsoft's Vulnerable Driver Blocklist or the LOLDrivers list.
HoYoKProtect is a kernel driver the game loads when it starts, from a file kept in the game's own folder. HoYoverse's terms say its cheat detection may collect and transmit details about your account, your gameplay, and programs and processes it treats as potentially unauthorized. While it runs it can examine the machine it is installed on, to the depth a kernel driver reaches. It cannot see a second computer, a capture card, or hardware placed between an input device and the port it plugs into. HoYoverse committed in 2020 that its anti-cheat would not run after the game closes; whether this driver unloads at exit has not been independently documented.
Catalogued by Vera from the anti-cheat maker's own documentation and named public reporting (Ars Technica, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, BleepingComputer, and others). Anti-cheats change; these notes reflect the public record as of October 2026. What is here is public evidence, never an accusation about a person.