Account bans stop one login. HWID bans stop the machine. Marathon inherits industry-standard escalation: cheat, get caught, cheat again on a new account, lose the PC fingerprint too.
What triggers HWID bans
Repeated offenses, known cheat driver traces, and linked accounts flagged together. Ban waves often hit weeks after the offense.
Spoofers
HWID spoofers mask disk and motherboard IDs. They are sold alongside game cheats — including on Marathon cheat sites — and they carry their own detection risk.
Image credit: IGN
Simplest recovery: stop cheating on that hardware. For legit players, secure your account and avoid sketchy loaders that trip kernel flags even when you are clean.
Related: spoofer overview (update the product name in your shop separately).

